Sailing and Hteartv- Vessels. 177 



in papers in the Phil. Trans., 1751, 1755, combats these, and 

 regrets the want of their more general use in ships, for the 

 preservation of the health of seamen. Whatever, there- 

 fore, may have been the cause of their discontinuance, — 

 and, it is more than probable, it arose from the trouble of 

 working them, rather than the space occupied, or even any 

 noise they might create, — they gradually appeal- to have 

 been disused in ships, after all the labour bestowed on them 

 by their philanthropic inventor. No vestige of them seems 

 now in existence, nor were they in use, when I first became ac- 

 quainted with nautical affairs, nor were they in the recollection 

 of the oldest seamen I have enquired at. 



I have alluded to the communications read before the 

 Royal Society in 1742, where the invention of Dr Desagu- 

 liers and Dr Hales are noticed. Dr Mead, F.R.S., then 

 brought forward Mr Samuel Sutton's (brewer in London) 

 " invention and method for ventilating ship-holds, the well, 

 and other parts,'' and describes the plan as being successfully 

 tried on board the hulk at Deptford. The plan was very sim- 

 ple ; it merely consisted of a tube, of convenient size, of lead, 

 and partly of copper, closely fitted into a hole in the ash-pit 

 of the furnace of the ship's coppers, or cooking fire, and small 

 branches communicated with this pipe from various places in 

 the lower parts of the ship. The defects of this method of 

 ventilating by tubes, were particularly examined into, and 

 pointed out by Dr Hales ; and, although the principle was 

 highly esteemed, it does not appear to have met with much 

 encouragement, or to have got into general use, although it 

 possessed the advantage over the mechanical rival plans of 

 ventilation then in vogue, of requiring no one to work it. It 

 seems singular, that Dr Mead should attribute the invention 

 of this principle of ventilation to Mr Sutton, and that he does not 

 allude to a communication made to the Royal Society of Lon- 

 don, seventy years before, recommending it; any merit Mr 

 Sutton could claim, being his suggestion of applying the 

 principle to ships. From the Royal Society of London Trans- 

 actions it appears. Vol. L, July 3, 1665, Sir Robert Moray 

 gave an account " how adits and mines were wrought at Lieg© 



VOL. XXXVI. NO. LXXI. JAN. 1844. M 



