HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

45

Historians and others have been so extremely vague, irregular, and contradic-tory in the accounts they have offered, not only of the particular form in, whichthe galley was constructed, but also as to other points not less consequential,that investigation, were they to be implicitly relied on, would, if not impracti-cable, be at least extremely difficult. In aid of this inquiry, the curious havetherefore had recourse to the very indeterminate information of coins, and suchremnants of sculpture as the ravages of time, and the barbarous fury of invaders,have left to be treasured up in the cabinets of the curious. The informationthey afford, though founded perhaps on the most respectable evidence nowexisting, is at best extremely imperfect, it may almost as well be imagined, thewhimsical figure intended to represent a ship, which is impressed on the goldnoble of Edward III. can convey an adequate idea of the vessels composingthe fleet with which that monarch invaded France, as to suppose that of thegalley, exhibited on the coins of Greece, Rome, and other countries, is to beconsidered a perfect, or, in any extensive degree, a semblance of one.

Among the most probable, the most rational explanations that have yet beengiven, is one by a modern French author, M. L’Escalier. It solves many of thosestrange assertions made by the ancients of the magnitude of particular vessels,which throwing an air of fiction and romance on their descriptions, consequentlyinduce posterity to doubt, if not totally discredit them. We have for a long time(says he) treated as a kind of visionary chimera, the account of three, four, five,and even eight tiers of oars, one above the other, by which the curious, who areunacquainted with naval matters, wish to explain the different appellations be-stowed on ancient gallies, called Triremes, Quadriremes, Quinquiremes, and Octo-remes. Whoever has the smallest idea of, or will give himself the least troubleto reflect on the subject, will very easily perceive the absolute impossibility ofany vessel being able to carry even four rows, or ranks, of oars thus disposed.In the modern gallies, which have only one tier, and are in length equal to ashipcarryingsixty-four guns,the oars, though the supporting point, orrowlock port,is as near the water-line as possible, are forty-four feet long. Allowing a spaceof four feet and an half between the lower tier of row-ports, and that immediatelyabove it, the oars of the second must, pursuing this rule, be seventy-seven feetin length, those of the third an hundred and ten, those of the fourth one hundredand forty-three, &c. Where can we, as is judiciously remarked by this author,either find wood proper for the formation of these oars, or men powerful enoughto use them ? Even the third tier could not be managed properly, were not the

vessel