of the knee-joint I have seen excited by thus throwing the whole weight of the body upon the knees.

After the large and small holy stones have been kept in play for upwards of two hours, by which the decks have been worn and saturated with moisture, the men's clothes drenched, and every atom of matter finely ground down, they are set aside, and this well blended heterogeneous fluid is suffered to escape by means of the scupper holes.

The dumb-scrapers are next used to take out stains, which could not be acted on by either of the holy stones; and, thus, by the assistance of more water, brooms and swabs, the operations (as already mentioned) are completed about half past seven or eight o'clock.

Let us now examine the effects of this system of cleaning the ship on those individuals who had just been turned out from their hammocks, and who have passed three hours and a half of an amphibious existence, previous to going to breakfast. Let us also remember that, in this watery circle, the victims of venereal pleasure, who have just completed their six weeks course of alterative medicine, meet with the hepatic valetudinarian after a long residence in a tropical climate; or the friend of his youth, who

has a predisposition to, or is already affected with, incipient consumption, &c. all performing their various parts in the watery throng. But the evil arising from those early and tedious forms of ablution, has not yet been seen in its most alarming shape; for during the period that water was so lavishly dashed on the decks and sides of the ship, it is evident the seamen could not escape being wetted; and in this state they go down to breakfast; and from which they rise to the cleansing or

Washing the Lower Deck.

THE washing or cleaning of the lower deck, after breakfast, now remains to be described. This piece of service is performed in one of the three following ways: viz. 1st, by dry holy stoning, i. e. using dry sand and rubbing it on the deck without water; 2dly, washing the deck after the same manner as the main and quarter decks which have already been spoken of; and, 3dly, by sprinkling and scrubbing, that is, watering the deck in a different way, either by throwing it out of a bucket with the hand, or applying it by means of wetted swabs to the whole surface of the deck. Afterwards dumb scrapers

D

are used, and where those implements cannot be applied, the seamen's knives are generally called into action, for scraping the previously wetted tables and ladders, &c. and the second ablution is usually finished about half past ten or eleven o'clock.

In those ships where sprinkling and scrubbing are practised to do away with the name of washing decks, (but its effects are nearly the same,) there are, in general, two days set a part

in every week, (Thursday and Sunday,) for making the utmost effort in the cleaning art. On those days, every wooden surface below is doomed to be visited by holy stones, sand and water, dumb scrapers, knives and swabs, so that the decks, &c. may be put in a proper state to meet the approbation of the commanding officer, who generally goes round after such occasions, to bestow praise or censure, as he may judge ne

cessary.

After breakfast, on the abovementioned days, the bustle of working the holy stones, carrying water, and strewing sand on the deck, becomes general over the ship; and, as the washing is supposed by many to do good, and be salutary, according to the quantity of the element used, I have frequently seen the whole lower deck covered with water to a considerable depth, while

the small and great eight-handed holy stones were ploughing the water on the surface of the deck in every direction.*

After these measures have been pursued for a certain length of time, regulated by the opinion of the superintending officer, an effort is at last made to dry the deck, either by swabbing up the water, or allowing it to escape by means of two small scuttle holes, that are usually cut through the deck close to the ship's side, by which the sand and water, vegetable and animal matter, pass down between the ship's side and her lining, and, ultimately, percolates into the hold.

I sincerely trust the time is nearly past for any one to assert, that no bad effects will arise from this exposure, and the accumulation of such a mass in the lower department of a ship; in any place or climate, but more particularly within the

* It will hardly be credited, that the rage for washing in some ships, is carried so far, that the midshipmen's chests and others, on the lower deck, are regularly white-washed about thrice a week, by a man who goes round with a bucket and brush for that purpose. The injury done by this custom is beyond calculation, not only in diffusing moisture, but, also, by the lime or chalk absorbing the oxygen or vital part of the air, for which it has so strong an affinity; and, from this cause, the constitution of the atmosphere of the lower deck becomes greatly deteriorated.

tropics, where the putrefactive process runs its course most rapidly.*

Let us now return and take a careful survey of the lower deck, half an hour after this system of washing has been finished; and let us observe

* On going first to a warm climate, one is instantly struck by the rapidity with which even metallic substances become rusted.

In the West Indies and at Bermuda, polished iron surfaces and buttons, become partially oxidized in a few days; while at Quebec, but yet more particularly at Montreal, some houses which have been covered with tinned plates for forty years, remain still untarnished; and scythes, &c. exposed to the open air, in that country, continue nearly free from rust till the ensuing year.

It is generally admitted, that iron has the property of decomposing water, by uniting with its oxygen to form rust, while hydrogen, the other component part of water, is carried off by caloric in the form of hydrogen gas.

It would appear, however, this process does not take place rapidly, unless the atmosphere has been previously charged with marine evaporations. For to what are we to attribute the little or non-oxidizement of metal at Montreal, but to its great distance from the sea; or, in other words, from all the oceanic exhalations having been condensed on their passage hither by the tops of mountains, and immense tracts of cold desert land, over which the wind has to pass before it reaches that city.

Rain-water, in Europe, according to Margraaff, always contains traces of the muriatic and nitric acids; it would be interesting to learn, if rain near Montreal (at a distance of 500 miles from the sea) is impregnated with marine acid.