MARITIME OBSERVATIONS, 307 
Toweft in the middle where it is moft likely to enter, 
this being higheft in that part, as in figure 11. 
The Chinefe are an enlightened people, the moft anti- 
ently civilized of any exifting, and their arts are antient, 
a prefumption in their favour: their method of rowing 
their boats differs from ours, the oars. being worked either 
two a-ftern as we {cull, or on the fides with the fame kind 
of motion, being hung parallel to the keel on a rail and 
always acting in the water, not perpendicular to the fide 
as ours are, nor lifted out at every ftroke, which is a lofs 
of time, and the boat in the interval lofes motion. ‘They 
fee our manner, and we theirs, but neither are difpofed to 
learn of or copy the other. 
To the feveral means of moving boats mentioned above, 
may be added the fingular one lately exhibited at Javelle, 
on the Seine below Paris, where a clumfy boat was moy- 
ed acrois that river in three minutes by rowing, not in the 
water, but in the air, that is, by whirling round a fet of 
windmill vanes fixed to a horizontal axis, parallel to the 
keel, and placed at the head of the boat. The axis was 
bent into an elbow at the end, by the help.of which it was 
turned by one man at a time. I faw the operation at a 
diftance. ‘The four: vanes appeared to be about five feet 
long, and perhaps two and a half wide. The weather 
was calm. ‘The labour appeared to be great for one man, 
as the two feveral times relieved each other. But the ac- 
tion upon the air by the oblique furfaces of the vanes muft 
have been confiderable, as the motion of the boat appear-- 
ed tolerably quick going and returning; and fhe returned 
to the fame place from whence fhe firft fet out, notwith- 
ftanding the current. This machine is fince applied to the 
moving of air balloons: An inftrument fimilar may be 
contrived to move a boat by turning under water. 
Several mechanical projectors have at different times 
propofed to give motion to boats, and even to fhips, by 
means of circular rowing, or paddles placed on the circum 
. ference 
