HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

SIS

paid that it should continue serviceable if possible; and, if the term be allowable,on account of its quaintness, beyond the period of its natural life. To accom-plish this purpose, it has been, and still continues customary with the natives andthair employers, to double, or case over, the bottom of a ship when it manifestsany symptoms of decay, with a second, formed of somewhat slighter materials thanthe original one ; and somewhat resembling the European practice of sheathing.This contrivance has been found, on some accounts, to answer the intention ofthe practice extremely well, more particularly as swiftness in sailing is a propertyto which the marine architecture of India have paid, as being but little necessaryto their purpose, very immaterial attention.

The genius of other inhabitants occupying this quarter of the world, appears par-ticularly brilliant in their contrivances invented for the purpose of aiding theirnautical pursuits, and the ingenuity with which they have been brought into use.Nor has this penetration and expertness been confined to the continent of Indiaalone, where the intercourse with the natives of other quarters of the world mightafford some ground for the disputant, (who, jealous for the honour of Europeanscience, might affect to doubt whether the practice, whatever it might be, was notentirely produced by that connexion,) but has extended throughout the whole ofthose almost innumerable islands scattered over the face of the Indian or Asiaticocean, properly so called : dispersed through climates, or placed under latitudesdiverging and varying from each other as widely almost as any, of which the wholeface of the universe can present an example. The Asiatic navigators of the torrid,the temperate, and the nearly frigid zone, of that part of the ocean subject tothose hurricanes and tempests which so frequently prove destructive to the mostscientific seamen, and the best constructed ships, as well as those who have beenhappily placed by Providence under the more genial influence of the stead y constantbreezes, better known by the name of the trade winds, have all displayed aitattention to their situation, an ingenuity in providing against disasters, and a skill inrendering their means fully equal to their wants, which cannot fail to excitethe admiration and the most sincere applause of those whose practice has beenmatured, and perfected by long observation, as well as continued experience.

The most celebrated, and, perhaps, the most singular of the vessels, natives, as theymay be called, of this ocean, is the Indian or flying proa. The contrivers and pos-sessors of this very extraordinary boat, or canoe, and the practice of constructing it,in which they were most probably well versed, for the space of many centuries, ere