My boy Charlie has made a cork boat, and is blowing it about to try and
make it sink, but it is like a life-boat, and will not go over. Did you
ever see a life-boat? and do you know what makes it different from other
boats? or why it is so called? Perhaps you don’t know, so I will tell
you, for all knowledge is pleasant and useful.
A life-boat is so called because it is useful in saving life. When a
ship is in distress, a life-boat can put off from the shore and reach
the ship, and then come back again laden with the poor people it has
saved from drowning, because it can live in a sea where any other boat
would sink and be lost.
“Why is this?” you ask. That is just what I am going to explain. So,
stop blowing, Charlie, and come and listen to me.
A life-boat is lined with cork; in other words, it has a compartment or
inside casing filled in with cork, or sometimes with large thin metal
air-tight tubes; this is done to make it buoyant, that is, able to keep
bounding along the stormy sea instead of sinking to the bottom. For cork
will not sink. Stick a sail to it, and blow as Charlie has done, but you
will not blow it over easily.
The brave men who man the life-boat must be made safe, too; so they wear
cork jackets, and life-belts filled with cork, and take life-buoys with
them. A life-buoy is a large round casing filled with cork, with a hole
in the middle large enough to slip over a man’s head and shoulders, and
it will keep him from sinking to have one on.
[Illustration]