Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1891 — LIFE-SAVING ROCKETS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LIFE-SAVING ROCKETS.

AVfow and (Successful Apparatus to Throw the Life Dine. In many cases of shipwreck on our coast the life-saving service men have failed to accomplish the rescue of the people by means of the Lyell gun. The line has fallen short or become snarled or fouled in rigging, and thereby became vain Je3 The wreck of the bark Dictate o the Eastern coast recently shows oat the Lyell gun failed to throw the line far enough, and a line from the vessel was the means whereby a portion of the crew

were rescued. Congress in 1889 passed a law compelling steam vessels to carry self-propelling projectiles carrying lines. The Board of Inspectors adopted the Cunningham and Lyell guns. After the law had been in operation the Eastern steamboat interests contrived to secure its repeal, but last January Congress concluded to empower the Secretary of the Treasury to enforce the law so far as ocean-going steamers are concerned, giving them optional powers to enforce its workings on lake and bays. The projectile to be used under the new law is known as the Cunningham rocket. It consists of a rocket carrying a tube containing a coiled line, vhich is paid out of the tube as the

rocket passes thro’ the air from the ship to the shore. The [rocket is sixteen inches kmg and (three and a half [inches in diameter. |To its rear end a tube is attached five feet long, containing 2,550 feet of line one-eighth of an inch in diameter. The weight of the apparatus is forty pounds. Each locket is packed in a box that serves as a chute to guide the

rocket in its flight. All that is necessary in case of shipwreck is to place the box against the Bhip’s rail or any stationary object, fasten the end of the coiled line that protrudes from tho tube to a heavy hawser on the vessel, light the fuse, and the rocket speeds on its way shoreward. The people on shore gain the line and commerce hauling in the large rope, establishing communication by either the breechesbuoy or boats. The rocket will carry the line 2,550 feet in twelve seconds. It is the intention of the Secretary of the Treasury to call the attention of all maritime nations to the desirability of enforcing the carrying of this apparatus upon their vessels, and there is no doubt that its adoption would rerulj; in a decrease of loss of life by shipwreck on a coast. .

FIRING A ROCKET.

THE ROCKET.