320 On Naval Architecture, and the 



Art. XII. — Observations on Naval Architecture, and on the 

 state of Science in our Dock-Yards. 



The public attention has at length, by the experimental attempts 

 of Sir Robert Seppings, Professor Inman, and Captain Hays, 

 been excited respecting ship-building ; an art of transcendent im- 

 portance to this country, but which has been most singularly neg- 

 lected. The time, it is to be hoped, is at length arrived, when the 

 benefits that science is capable of conferring on it will be acknow- 

 ledged; and a due value set on the efforts of those who may 

 employ their ingenuity and talents, in advancing its interests. By 

 far the major part of our present knowledge of naval architecture 

 has been derived from an imperfect expeiience ; the principles and 

 maxims of theory having had but little to do with its improvement. 

 It is not, however, that theoretical men have been inactive ; or that 

 an art, which is identified more than any other with the most im- 

 portant interest of man, has been neglected by those who are 

 capable, from their talents and their superiority in science, of con- 

 tributing to its successful advancement; but because those who 

 have hitherto had to do with its practical exemplification, have in 

 an unaccountable degree neglected the cultivation of those branches 

 of knowledge on which ship-building so essentially depends. 



The contrast between civil and naval architecture, in this point 

 of view, is remarkable. The former has derived accessions of 

 strength of no ordinary importance, from the application of science; 

 and has numbered, among its cultivators, men who have obtained 

 immortal renown by the perfection they have imparted to their 

 works, by judiciously blending the principles of science with the 

 maxims derived from a sound experience. The latter, on the con- 

 trary, has seldom enjoyed the good fortune of having had its 

 operations guided by rules, deduced from so salutary an union. 

 The cultivators of naval architecture have, in general, been in the 

 truest sense practical, the torch of geometry seldom illuminating 

 their path ; and hence it has happened, that our present knowledge 

 of some of the most essential elements of ship-building is limited 

 and imperfect in the extreme ; nor would it be perhaps too much to 



