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HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

and recommend useful innovations, at a time when general prejudice in favourof ancient maxims * was perhaps at its greatest height.

* Among these proposed improvements may be reckoned the alteration of the enormous toweringstem, and the scarcely less absurd height of the forecastle; the abridgment of the ornaments on thequarter deck ; and the encreased elevation of the lower tier of guns from the level of the water.

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