300 MARITIME OBSERVATIONS. 
wheel, would thereby be more equally ftrained, and better 
able to bear the jerk, which may fave the anchor, and by 
that means in the courfe of the voyage may happen to 
fave the fhip. 
One maritime obfervation more fhall finith this letter. 
I have been a reader of news-papers now near feventy 
years, and 1 think few years pafs without an account of 
fome veflel met with at fea, with no foul living on board, 
and fo many feet of water in her hold, which veffel has 
neverthele{s been faved and brought into port: and when 
not met with at fea, fuch forfaken veffels have often come 
afhore on fome coaft. ‘The crews who have taken to their 
boats and thus abandoned fuch veffels, are fometimes met 
with and taken up at fea by other fhips, fometimes reach a 
coaft, and are fometimes never heard of. Thofe that give 
an account of quitting their veflels, generally fay, that fhe 
fprung a leak, that they pumped for fome time, that the 
water continued to rife upon them, and that defpairing 
to fave her, they had quitted her left they fhould go down 
with her. It feems by the event that this fear was not 
always well founded, and I have endeavoured to guefs at 
the reafon of the people’s too hafty difcouragement. 
When a veffel {prings a leak near her bottom, the wa- 
ter enters with all the force given by the weight of the 
column of water, without, which force is in proportion to 
the difference of level between the water without and that 
within. It enters therefore with more force at firft, and 
in greater quantity, than it can afterwards when the water 
within is higher. The bottom of the veffel too is nar- 
rower, fo that the fame quantity of water coming into 
that narrow part, rifes fafter than when the {pace for it 
to flow in is larger. This helps to terrify. But as the 
quantity entering is lefs and lefs as the furfaces without 
and within become more nearly equal in height, the pumps 
that could not keep the water from rifing at firft, might af- 
terwards be able to prevent its rifing hig her, and the people 
might 
