SI 4 On the Form of the Ark of Noah. 



floors, supporting both these again, furnished numerous braces 

 to strengthen every part of the fabric. 



^^i^o3ut this was not the only advantage. Its outward form was that 

 which is of all others the best adapted to elude the force of the 

 waves inastormy sea. The most ample experiencehas proved, that 

 an inclined plane, such as it presented on all sides to the waves, 

 renders their stroke harmless. We shall not refer for evidence 

 to the dikes of Holland and Denmark, where a slight covering 

 of straw ropes is found sufficient to protect their sloping surfaces 



) from the effects of the heaviest seas, as it may be said the incli- 

 nation of the planes there is much lower than in the figure we 

 have described. But we may refer to the extremities of our 

 own piers and breakwaters, which are found liable to little in- 

 jury from the heaviest seas, when they are made to meet them 

 in an inclined form ; and also to the tapering bases, which our 



; engineers have employed with so much success in our light- 

 houses, built, some of them, in the midst of the waters. Above 

 all, we may refer to the judgment of a person who had perhaps 

 more experience than any other individual, of the effects produ- 

 ced by the waves on ships at sea, and who remarked the efficacy 

 of even a comparatively slight inclination of the sides to prevent 



,. injury. In the Letters of the late Lord Collingwood, we find it 

 stated by him, that the old ships of his fleet, built, according to 

 a former practice, with the upper decks narrower than the lower, 

 and consequently having their sides inclined inwardly, suffered 

 comparatively little, during their long cruizes under his com- 

 mand ; while the new ones, built with vertical sides, an intended 

 improvement, to give more room on the decks, were exposed to 

 much injury from this form of structure, the waves beating upon 

 them with greatly increased violence. 



By the peculiar form of the ark now pointed out, its contents 

 are necessarily reduced to a little less than one-half of what the 

 parallelopiped affords. According to Dr Arbuthnot, the best 

 authority on such questions, the burden, granting the form to 

 have been a parallelopiped, amounted to about 81,000 tons. 

 The triangular form will still leave a capacity of more than 

 35,000 tons, allowing Dr Arbuthnofs estimate of the cubit; 

 forming yet a vessel so large, in comparison with any that we 

 are accustomed to build, that we can easily conceive, as a detail 



