HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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which our own judgment is ready to admit the existence of. The Biremes, saythe advocates for this explanation, were those vessels in which each oar wasmanaged or worked by two men. The Triremes were galleys in which threewere employed for that purpose, in the Quinquiremes five, and, to conclude,in the Octoremes eight men were allotted to execute the same service. Thisexplanation is at first sight subtle enough to induce our acquiescence in thepropriety of it; but its fallacy is, nevertheless, on a closer investigation, easy tobe detected.

The galleasses, used in subsequent times by the Venetians, which were by nomeans equal in point of size to the first rate galleys of the ancients, had ninemen employed in working each oar ; and, as a still stronger refutation of thepretended explanation alluded to, in all the descriptions given of the latter byancient authors, the words precisely are, “ Remorum ordines et remigum'gradus,”words which certainly can bear no allusion to the number of men employed ateach oar.

After reading the various treatises written with a view of elucidating thissubject, after viewing the different designs collected with much care from theRoman antiquities for the same purpose, though they afford us in themselvesnothing decidedly satisfactory, we may boast of having, in some measure,developed from them, if not the absolute truth, at least a reasonable system orexplanation. This has been a matter of no small difficulty: these learned disserta-tions and investigations, compiled chiefly from the labours and evidence of ancientsculptors, who attended neither to exactness nor proportion, are extremely con-tradictory, and it is very evident that, for the most part, they convey to us avery false idea of the rallies of ancient times.

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It may probably not be unentertaining (says L’Escalier) to explain this opinionmore fully; even should it be deemed erroneous, it will be some consolation toreflect it is not the first error the investigation of this subject has given birth to ;and as it is merely a matter of curiosity, the mistake, even if it prove one, cannotbe material.

The Uniremes may be supposed to have been those galleys or vessels which hadonly one row of oars extending between their masts, or, perhaps, the entirelength of the vessel, like the modern feluccas of Barbary; and consequentlyrequired only one rank of rowers.

The Biremes had one tier of oars between their masts, and another abaftthe main or principal mast.

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