HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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built merely for the use of commerce, yet they were both, as already observed,subdivided into so many ranks and descriptions, that the distinctions, parti-cularly among those of the latter class, might, in some measure, be consideredrather as the effect of whim and caprice, than of any serious reason: theart*of navigation, as well as the science of constructing vessels, being indu-bitably, for a series even of ages subsequent to their first discovery, in a veryrude state. The term ratis, which is the most ancient of those used by theLatins to define any floating vessel, evidently points out the nature and peculiarquality of the first invention. From the raft*, in process of time, was derivedthat numerous class of descendants just alluded to. Isidorus, book xix. chap, i,states, “ that the only difficulty existing in the aboriginal vessels of antiquity,,amounted simply to the attention, that the logs or trees, of which they wereformed, should be so firmly lashed together, that there might be no dan-ger of their separating, or breaking loose from each other.” Notwithstandingthe manifest inconvenience, not to say danger, which must have attended thecontinued use of so imperfect a structure, a very extensive period of timeappears to have elapsed ere the improvement on it became general. Inaddition to the Egyptians, to whom the original invention has been attri-buted, the same contrivance was adopted both by the Phoenicians and theEthiopians, the latter of which people are said to have undertaken what,,speaking comparatively, might be considered very distant voyages, with no-better means of maritime conveyance. Sicily, Corsica, and various othersamong the islands situated in the Mediterranean, are said to have been firstcolonised by navigators who were no otherwise furnished.

Instances are not wanting also, if any dependance can be placed on theterms used by the ancients, of the application of such vessels even to the pur-poses of war. But this circumstance,, though highly curious, and stronglyindicative of the natural propensity of the human race, to seize every possibleopportunity of promoting scenes of hostility towards each other, though by themost inconvenient and dangerous means, is rather immaterial at present..While genius applied itself to the improvement of this rude system in thosequarters, where, from the peculiarity of situation, and their approximation tothe ocean, it had first gained footing, the cotemporary inhabitants of coun-tries very far distant, struck out boldly at once into a more scientific, thoughmore contracted scale, for a single tree only, artificially hollowed, served

* See page 12.

them