Let any one think of the large number of human beings thus rescued, in numerous instances, from the very jaws of death, as in the service so nobly and perseveringly performed by the St. Ives lifeboat before referred to; and let him think, on the other hand, of the fearful calamities that have overtaken the unhappy crews and passengers of the ships London, Royal Charter, and others, and he will then have some conception of the gratitude which British and foreign sailors, who are constantly exposed to such calamities, express to the National Lifeboat Institution and its supporters, for the magnificent fleet of lifeboats provided on our shores for their succour in the hour of their deep distress. And here it may be mentioned that the lifeboats of the institution have, during the past four years, been manned on occasions of service and quarterly practice by about 26,550 persons, and that out of that large number only six have lost their lives.

An interesting summary is given by the institution of the cases in which honorary and other rewards have been voted. It appears that during the past year, 9 silver medals, 27 votes of thanks inscribed on vellum and parchment, and £1,790 have been granted for saving the lives of 714 persons by lifeboats, shore and fishing-boats, and other means, on the coasts and outlying banks of the United Kingdom.

It is satisfactory to know that our boatmen and fishermen, all over the coast, know now that their exertions in saving life from shipwreck are promptly and liberally rewarded by the National Lifeboat Institution, in proportion to the risk and exposure incurred in the perilous service; and in this way a spirit of emulation and activity is fostered and encouraged on the coasts of the British Isles, productive of the best results to the shipwrecked sailor.

In this important work the committee have continued to receive the prompt and cordial co-operation of their active colleague, Commodore A. P. Ryder, R.N., Controller-General; also of Capt. J. W. Tarleton, R.N., C.B., Deputy-Controller-General, and of the officers and men of the coastguard service, to whom the best thanks of the institution are hereby tendered.

Since the formation of the society it has expended on lifeboat establishments £136,881, and has voted 82 gold and 759 silver medals for saving life, and pecuniary rewards to the amount of £22,140.

The cordial co-operation of local branch committees, which constitute so important a portion of the machinery for the supervision

of the several lifeboat establishments of the institution is readily rendered.

The total amount of receipts of the institution during the past year was £28,932 3s. 3d.: of this noble sum no less than £9,254 6s. 7d. were special gifts to defray the cost of twenty-three lifeboats. We append the list, as it is probably one of the most magnificent lists ever published, and apparently the liberality of the public in this lifeboat work knows no bounds.

Amongst the many gratifying donations to the institution since the last report, occur the following, the receipt of which the committee gratefully acknowledge:

Miss Mary Ann Sanford, per Henry Wittey, Esq., Colchester, £500; Joseph Pease, Esq., Darlington, £100; Lady Maxwell's Contribution Box in the hall of her house, 3rd donation, £2 15s.; the Quiver Magazine Lifeboat Fund, per Messrs. Petter and Galpin and the Rev. Teignmouth Shore (on account), £800; X. Y. Z., £100; Offertory at St. James's Church, Ratcliffe, including 240 farthings, the savings of a Sailor's Widow, per Rev. J. Malcolmson, £1 18.; Lady Martin, in memory of her brother, the late Admiral Sir H. Byam Martin, K.C.B., £100; collected by Master Henry Hall, of Clevedon, and one or two of his schoolfellows, 8s.; a Sailor's Daughter, per Messrs. Drummonds, 3rd donation, £100; F. Blockey, Esq., for finding the body of a.

gentleman drowned off Baghdad, £5; proceeds of the Devon and Cornwall Lifeboat Bazaar, per Mr. G. P. Rowell, £464 58.; W. Gore Langton, Esq., £100; Indemnity Mutual Marine Insurance Company, 5th donation, £105; collected by Miss Harton, Highbury, £11 118.; collected by an Invalid Boy, per Rev. E. S. Currie, Maplestead, £2 168.; proceeds of a Penny Reading at the Patterdale Working Men's Reading-room, per Rev. W. T. Rooke, £1 17s. 6d.; the Dowager Lady Carew, £100; collected at Bristol by Mr. John Parsons, a bookbinder, amongst his fellow-workmen, £1; collected by a little Girl at St. Ives, per Mr. James Young, 10s.; Penny Readings' Committee at Blockley, per R. B. Belcher, Esq., £5 14s. 9d.; Annie, for those in peril on the sea, £1 1s.; Officers and Ship's Company of H.M.S. Petrel, per J. Richards, Esq., R.N., £6 10s.; Miss Florence Nightingale, £20, with her prayer "that God would continue to bless as he had so manifestly blessed the humane work of the Lifeboat Institution;" a Widow's Mite, 2s. 6d.; the Ancient Order of Foresters, additional donation, £90 1s.; a "Middle-class Man," £100; contributions in coppers by Pupils at Surrey House, Littlehampton, per G. Neame, Esq., £2; Osgood Hanbury, Esq., a small token of respect to the memory of his son, who was drowned in H.M.S. Nerbudda, wrecked off Cape Agulhas, £10 10s.; Children at the Worsley National School near Manchester, per Mr. J. Baldwin, 12s.; from the Officers of the 7th Rifle Depôt Battalion, Winchester, per R. Norton Cartwright, Esq,, £15 3s. 6d.; City of Exeter Lifeboat Fund, per Mr. T. B. Gibbs (first instalment), £400; the Sheffield Lifeboat Fund, per T. Jessop, Esq., £300; Scholars of Wesleyan Day School, Bristol, per Mr. Mawbey, £10 138.; from Hamburg, by "One saved, with God's help, by a British lifeboat from a wreeked steamer," £5; proceeds of a Concert given by some of the crew of H. M. S. Lizard, Oban, N.B., per Lieut. J. B. Telfer, R.N., £8 98. 6d.; A Sailor's Widow, £10; the Oxford University Lifeboat Fund, collected per Rev. G. S. Ward (first instalment), £400; and the Cheltenham Lifeboat Fund (first instalment), collected per Rev. W. Hodgson and Capt. Young, R.N., £400,

Legacies have been bequeathed to the institution during the past twelve months by

During the past year £16,259 2s. 11d. were expended on additional lifeboats, transporting - carriages, boat-houses, and necessary gear; £5,478 98. 11d. on the expenses of repairs, painting, refitting, &c.; and £4,986 18. 7d. in rewards for services to shipwrecked crews, coxswains' salaries, and quarterly practice of the boats' crews; making altogether, including liabilities amounting to £8,249 2s. 10d. for lifeboat stations now in course of formation, and other expenses, a total of £36,725 17s. 4d.

For a considerable saving in the item of transport to their stations, of new lifeboats and carriages, the committee again express their thanks to the several railway and steam-packet companies, who have most liberally conveyed them to all parts of the United Kingdom, free of charge.

The items of receipt and expenditure are detailed in the financial statement of the institution, fully audited as usual by a public accountant.

It is a great satisfaction to find that, year by year, the sphere of the operations of the institution has continued to extend, and that the public support has fully corresponded with the extension of those labours.

We would, however, strongly urge on all who recognise the sacredness of human life, the duty and even the privilege to help forward the lifeboat work-a work which has hitherto been manifestly blessed by Providence, and which has brought relief to many thousands of men who, instead of being on this very day valuable members of the community, would have been long ago engulfed in the raging waves of the tempest, leaving in many cases widows and orphans to suffer, not only the misery of bereavement, but the pangs of destitution.

THE MARIANAS ISLANDS.-Rota, Agrigan, Tinian.
(Continued from vol. xxxiv. page 649.)

Rota Island.-Notwithstanding its small population, the island of Guajan must be considered as the only settled island of the Marianas group; small as it is, the others scarcely deserve consideration compared with it. Hence the rest of the archipelago, interesting as they may be in a hydrographic or geological point of view, are unimportant under any other point, and consist of almost uninhabited islands.

The commander of the Narvaez then proceeds with a description

of the rest of the islands of the group, commencing with the southernmost, and proceeding North to Pajaros: and first of Rota.

The island of Rota is twelve miles long and six broad, and the natives are called Luta: so that the name of Rota, by which the island is known, would appear to be a corruption of the native name. It is tolerably high, and in my opinion higher than any of the southern islands; that is, higher than Guajan, Agrigan, Tinian, and Saypan. On its western side there is a plain, on which stands the town, which is formed by two streets-viz., Sosanlago and Sosanjaya, each of which front a shore of the island, which is there exceedingly contracted; Sosanlago being to the northward, and Sosanjaya to the southward. It contains seventy-nine houses of cane, thatched with cocoanut leaves, a poor hermitage called a church, a house for the curate, a kind of abode called the casa real, and 335 inhabitants, among whom the curate is the only European. The town appears to be without a proper name, but it is called the town of Rota, and by no other.

A vessel may drop her anchor off either of the two streets, which give their names to the anchorages; the northern one being called Sosanlago, and the southern Sosanjaya.

The ground on which the town stands is a very low sandy isthmus, which in bad weather is much flooded by the sea. On these occasions the inhabitants take refuge in a cave near Sosanjaya-a part tolerably high, and return to their huts when the storm has passed; which, in order not to be washed away by the sea, are built on stakes, and stand tolerably high. The cave is a very remarkable one: it is full of crystallizations, and its depth is so great that no one, it is said, has found the end of it. This assertion gains credit from the ground of it being very irregular, full of rocks and deep lagoons; and a person runs a considerable risk in it of breaking his head.

It is said that there is an inactive crater on the summit of the island, the existence of which is very probable, considering the form and nature of the island. However, I have not witnessed it, nor has the present governor of the islands either. The mountain which forms the island is terminated by a kind of table summit; and should there really be a crater there, it must have been several centuries since it was in action, for brambles and trees grow on the sides of it up to the summit and on all sides of it. There are numerous monuments scattered on the sides of the mountain, formed of rudely wrought stone, and which appear to be the sepulchral monuments of a people who inhabited the island, not only before it fell into the hands of the Spaniards, but before it was inhabited by the Chamorros.

The anchorage of Sosanlago is excessively bad. Near the reef which lies off the shore and close to the breakers, which seem scarcely to leave room for a vessel, there is a narrow part on which she may drop her anchor. The bottom is rocky, with patches of sand, and the depth of water is so irregular, that I have found 14 fathoms at the chains when the anchor was dropped in a depth of above 30. The pilot informed me that there are several of these holes in this part,