HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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as the shape and construction of these destructive engines appear, the uses towhich they were frequently applied resembled each other in so great a degree,as to aid very much that hesitation and doubt, which has prevented many per-sons from decidedly attributing to each, the particular point or system of offencein which they were severally used.

Although the discovery of the use of gunpowder, and consequently the inven-tion of cannon, owed their origin to much later ages, yet the ancients appear tohave been by no means behind hand with their descendants in the constructionof various engines, scarcely less destructive than those which modern refinementboasts the introduction of. The catapulta ;, the balisicc, the corvi already de-scribed, in great measure rivalled by sea and land the destructive effects of theheaviest cannon. Admitting, also, that particular destructive composition justmentioned was unknown to the combatants of old, they were to a certaintynot unacquainted with a variety of methods, by which they could produceeffects scarcely less destructive, and differing almost immaterially in their ap-pearance and peculiarity of operation.

It is agreed on all hands, that pipes, or hollow cylinders of metal, were fre-quently used even in the early ages of naval war, by means of which the assailantswere enabled to vomit forth fire, which is the precise term used, on the vesselsof their antagonists. “ Ignis cum tcnitru et fumo ignito per siphones emissusnaves incendens.” “ Fire emitted through pipes, with considerable report or.noise, and attended with inflamed smoke, for the purpose of burning the vesselsof an enemy.” This definition bears so near a resemblance to the proper de-scription which would be given to gunpowder, and its effects, by any modernwriter, that to deny them a perfect knowlege of the horrid chemistry, seemsalmost an act of injustice to the ingenious studies and lucubrations of the an-cients. Schaeffer properly remarks, that the only apparent difference betweenthese siphons, or pipes, and the cannon of the moderns, is, that the former threwforth fire rather for the purpose of consuming the vessel of the enemy, orterrifying them from the contest, while the latter destroyed it at a more re-moved distance by the effect of its shot.

The Rhodians introduced into the system of naval offence a practice of car-rying on the prows of their gallies, when entering into action, vessels formed ofbaked earth, which were filled with lighted coals, or other combustible matter.Livy records this invention, but describes the engine as formed of an iron pan,

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