112

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

The extravagance into which the extremity of the fashion was, on someoccasions, carried in those remote, as well as more modern times, may be wellunderstood from a whimsical dogma of Aristotle. “ It would be as ridicu-lous,” says the philosopher, “ on one hand, to construct a vessel only a palmin length, as it would on the other, (were it possible) to build one extendingtwo furlongs, inasmuch as one would be useless on account of its diminutive,the other because of its gigantic size.

Experience appears to have at length fixed the true and proper standard :since that particular species of galley called the trireme, was soon found tounite in itself the different qualities of a vessel of war, intended for swiftnessand for offence as well as for defence.

.1

» r , r ,

< s ^ r* c

C!TA?TrR