236 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



sails for gaining most on a wind, &c. &c.; he concluded by- 

 saying that Naval Architecture is a branch of physical science 

 which involves many questions that can only be determined by 

 experiment, but that the experiments are necessarily upon so 

 large a scale, as to place out of the power of individuals, or 

 even of societies of individuals to conduct them. It is therefore, 

 one of those enterprises in science which none but a nation can 

 undertake — and he thought it worthy of so great a maritime 

 nation as England, to endeavour to advance, at whatever reason- 

 able cost, a subject so important to its defence. 



October 15th, — a paper was read by H. Woollcombe, Esq., 

 President of the Institution, on the Objects and Advantages of 

 the British Association. The paper not admitting of an abstract 

 being made of it with effect, we have been kindly allowed by the 

 author to present the whole of it to our readers; it will appear 

 in the next number. 



October 22nd. — Lt. Col. Ham. Smith's Fourth Lecture, 



ON THE 



Filiation and Migrations of the Ancient Nations of Europe, 



After recapitulating the results of his last paper, the lecturer 

 drew the attention of the Society to a consideration of the Geo- 

 graphical state of Europe and the West of Asia during the first 

 ages after the flood ; and pointed out the greater size of the 

 rivers, the impediments arising from interminable forests and 

 from chains of mountains, that had not as yet been trodden by 

 the foot of man. He showed tlie particular routes which the 

 colonizers of the West must of necessity have taken, after quitting 

 their aboriginal seats, near the sources of the Indus and Oxus. 

 He pointed out the great central and shortest road, by the valley 

 of the Oxus, towards the Southern shore of the Caspian and the 

 Bactrian empire, being fixed, at a remote date, in that valley 

 prevented for several ages the further use of this route; 

 and necessitated other avenues to the West being explored. 

 Of these, one lay to the North, by the laxartes, to the sea of 

 Aral, and thence round the Northern shores of the Caspian. 

 Here the lecturer expatiated upon the difficulties which opposed 

 all further progress to colonists, after they had arrived at the 

 mouth of the Rha or Volga, because that river and the Don in 

 like manner are subject to extensive inundations during the sum- 



