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HISTORY OP MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

render an investigation interesting, and perhaps far from difficult, with respectto the vessels themselves.

An enlargement of views and ideas naturally produced that of wants also :the raft and the canoe became inadequate to the wishes, at least, of the pos-sessors, and ingenuity of course became stimulated to the contrivance of whatwas considered as a necessary extension. The difficulty of tracing the truehistory of maritime invention and improvement, has been very considerablyencreased by that application of indeterminate phrases and names, which per-vades almost every classical description, but more particularly those whichappertain to this science.

Certain, however, it appears, and indeed it is admitted on all hands, that as theratis, or raft, is the true ancestor, so the navis, or ship, is the youngest of thewhole progeny. The poverty of idea, or, to speak with less severity, the wantof experience, and contracted views of the ancients, when compared with thoseof the moderns, caused so immaterial a deviation in the ship or vessel of twocountries, situated even at the most extreme distance from each other, in thatpart of the world then known, which was considered as comprehending nearlythe whole of it, that it were totally nugatory to enter into division of fashionor customs, with respect to Marine Architecture, though of necessity it ori-ginally varied according to peculiar circumstances, after the first rude con-trivances of the aboriginal inhabitants had risen to the dignity of a regular-establishment or system.

The naval history of the world, far as the ancients * were concerned, admitsonly of two, or at the most three, grand divisions : the Grecians, with the Car-thaginian, and the Roman empires. All other states and potentates, notwith-standing some of them might claim precedence and notice on the score ofantiquity, were either too short lived, or too insignificant to be entitled to an-equal rank with those powerful nations, or confederated republics, v'hich,while in the zenith of their power, kept all the 'rest of the world, then known,in constant terror and apprehension for the effects of their anger.

Some partiality was, however, observable in the conduct of those countries,with respect to the dimensions of vessels. Some of them acting as though they

* The term of ancients is here meant to be applied to the inhabitants of all the known part of theworld previous to the commencement of the Christian sera,

wished