76 



PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 

 PROCEEDINGS IN THE ATHEN/EUM. 



DECEMBER 19TH. Mr. CHATFIELD'S Second Lecture on Naval 

 Architecture. 



THE Lecturer arranged his subject under the following heads : 

 He considered generally the nature of the motive forces employed to 

 propel vessels, but more particularly the action of the wind upon the 

 sails of a ship. He explained some of the leading features in the 

 theory and practice of masting ships. He described Chtipnuiu'x 

 method of finding the centre of gravity of a ship, by experiment. 

 He demonstrated the principle upon which ships, by a series of 

 diagonal movements, work to windward. 



He also gave a historical account of the successive attempts that 

 had been made to establish steam navigation, beginning as far back 

 as 1736, when Mr. Jonathan Hutts took out a patent for propelling 

 boats by steam. Mon. Perrier, the Marquis de Qouffroy, Lord 

 Stanhope, Lymington and Fulton were named as having been in- 

 strumental in introducing steam for the purposes of navigation ; but 

 the lecturer spoke of 1807 as the date from which steam navigation 

 may be said to have commenced and continued interruptedly. 



During his discourse the lecturer made the following important 

 remarks: I look upon the present period, Sir, as one with which 

 the future destinies of this land are closely linked. The presence of 

 the British flag was alone sufficient, but a short time ago, to show 

 the terror in which the Navy of England was every where held : but 

 we can no longer rely on that moral influence : other countries have 

 navies of their own ; and, unless those navies can be subdued by 

 physical influences, they will not be subdued at all. 



What is there in our navy that is not to be found in that of every 

 other maritime nation? Have not foreigners visited our dock yards 

 and gleaned every thing they thought worth taking away ? Have 

 they not built their ships and fitted them out precisely as we do? 

 And have they not latterly united with us in the practice of our 

 seamanship and naval evolutions, in forming combined squadrons ? 

 The recently combined fleets of England and France, off the Dutch 

 coast, and the alliance of the three powers, England, France, and 

 Russia, at Navarino, inevitably tended to produce a similarity in naval 

 warfare among all nations ; and it will be no less a matter of surprise 

 than of congratulation, if, on a renewal of hostilities, this has not the 

 effect of shaking the security of our dominion of the seas. The na- 

 tional intrepidity of an Englishman, and the heavy stake for which 



