The Ship Adoption Society

as was at first proposed. To avoid deterioration, however, membership is by election and non-members may only attend lectures on invitation by members.

This term the following lectures have been given :-

Cosmic Rays Dr. Whitmore.

Colloids R. R. L. Pryer and R. E. Dodd.

Colour ... C. A. F. Cookson and G. E. K. Reynolds.

The Eye F. N. Buckler.

It is proposed, among other things, to appoint next term a committee to investigate the colour-blindness of the whole school and to give an open lecture on the cathode ray tube and its uses.

News under this head becomes inevitably scantier. The practice of following the fortunes of our particular captain is liable, in war-time, to result in all-too-frequent changes in the identity of " our " ship. We last heard from Captain Richards early in the term, when he told us that he was in London awaiting a new command.

Mr. Martin, now a very old friend, paid us a welcome visit about mid-term. In the course of the few days he was with us he gave the school a most interesting account of a dive-bomber attack on the convoy in which his ship was sailing. Mr. Martin's ship suffered severely and it was at first thought necessary to take to the boats and abandon her. Later, however, there seemed a remote chance of saving her, and the Captain, with the traditional tenacity of the Merchant Service, took it. With what must have been consummate skill on the part of the navigating officers and engine-room staff, the ship was brought safely to a British port, with her back to all intents and purposes broken. Fortunately she was an old vessel and therefore unusually wellfound. An apparently quite inadequate piece of metal in the keel plate, on which the cohesion of the forward and after parts of the ship depended, held, and the perilous passage was successfully accomplished, though the ship steered more in the manner of a trailer combination than as a rigid whole.

Mr. Martin disclaimed the qualifications of a formal lecturer, but he showed that he possesses powers of fluent and direct narration which were considerably more effective. The School was absorbed by a thrilling tale which gained by being told modestly and with almost epic simplicity. 26