HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

«

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

The Advancement of the Art , and its application to the Purposes of H'ar.

QCARCE had the enterprising, the restless mind of man overcome the first^ terrors induced by adventuring on an element which appeared, as if designedby Nature, to be the fixt, the insurmountable boundary to its desires and ambi-tion; when, owing to causes already assigned, it immediately endeavoured, withthe utmost activity, to extend its views, and apply those discoveries to the de-structive purposes of war and plunder, which, in their origin, promised to beproductive not only of a much more innocent, but, as it might be thought, evenof an useful end. To this inordinate lust of dominion and pillage may princi-pally be ascribed the extension of the science of Marine Architecture to the inven-tion of the galley, a species of vessel more peculiarly contrived than any beforeconstructed, for the purpose of transferring to so unstable an element those scenesof furious contest which had, till then, disgraced the land only, and compellingit at least to participate in all the horrors of war.

So speedily was this purpose executed, that, as if by magic, the ocean wascovered with immense fleets, and without servilely imitating the pomp of easternlanguage, became literally dyed with the blood of the slain. So little are theaccounts given by ancient historians to be depended upon; so obscure, so contra-dictory is the information they afford us, that we dare not affirm, with anycertainty, who was the bold adventurer to whose daring spirit mankind owes, asa primary cause, this ever-to-be-lamented perversion of the original use to whichthe buovance of timber was first applied.

Philostratus asserts, that a certain prince, whom he calls Ervthras, and whommany persons imagine to have been Esau, or Edom, the son of Isaac, renderedhimself master of the Red Sea, and forbad the ./Egyptians from entering it withany galley or vessel fitted for the purposes of war. He is said also to havecarried his peremptory injunctions still farther, and to have even restrained theirtrade to-one vessel only at a time: but that politic nation contrived to evadethe force of this arbitrary edict, by building a vessel so large and capacious, that

it