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artificially to each other, or by the addition of such an extraneous part as willbe necessarily explained in speaking of the Indian, or Hying proa, as wasfound sufficient to answer the intended purpose. In short, without anyridiculous veneration for the lucubrations and knowlege of the ancients onone hand, or the smallest wish to depreciate modern improvement.on theother, it appears not improbable, that if candour be permitted completelyto close the jaundiced eye of prejudice, all sciences whatever might be con-siderably simplified by a strict attention to what has been the practice oftimes far remote; the circumstances which caused the introduction of anyparticular practice ; the success or inconvenience of it; and the consequentalteration which have progressively taken place in it. Stripped of the variousextraneous ornaments, the modern student may find his pride, or his vanity,mortified, on discovering those ideas, which he arrogantly attributes to hisown genius, were promulged to the world more than two thousand years,perhaps, before he himself existed, or broached them ; but he will, on theother hand, find his labours considerably shortened by data established onactual experiment, and on which he himself might raise the superstructure,without tormenting himself to find a soil sufficiently compact to renderthe foundation of it secure.

The apparently extravagant accounts given by^ various authors, of thefleets possessed by nations whose history they have recorded, and theapparently hyperbolical stories told of certain vessels, constructed even inthe most remote ages, have induced many persons to regard both asfictitious. It is certainly probable, that the different descriptions, takenin their literal and direct sense, are derived more from fancy thanfrom fact. A variety of causes have contributed, from the earliest agesof literature down to the present moment, and will certainly continue longas literature shall exist, to cause an extravagant ebullition, which may, onmany occasions, excite the incredulity of the reader. To quote an in-stance not so far remote as to be incapable of critical investigation. Thehistorical student of the present day, provided he were totally unac-quainted