MY boy Charlie has made a cork boat, and is blowing it about to try and make it sink, but it is 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 laden with the poor people it has saved from drowning, because it can live in a sea where any other boat would just 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 that is filled 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.
Unknown