118 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS [ Feb. 6, 
ship-builders have gained over the English chiefly by the ready aban- 
donment of old systems of routine and the adoption of the true prin- 
ciples of science and the most modern discoveries. They have changed 
their fashions of steamers and ships to meet new circumstances as 
they arose. For River Steamers they at once abandoned all the 
known sea-going forms, and created an absolutely new form and 
general arrangement both of ship and machinery. We, on the other 
hand, subject to the prejudices of a class, invariably attempted to 
make a river steamer as nearly as possible to resemble a sea-going 
ship propelled by sails. We were even for a long time so much 
ashamed of our paddle-wheels, that we adopted all sorts of inconve- 
nient forms and inapt artifices to conceal them, as if it were a high 
achievement to make a steam-vessel be mistaken for a sailing vessel. 
The fine sharp bows which the Wave Principle has brought to our 
knowledge have been adopted in this country with the greatest re- 
luctance, and those who adopt them are often unwilling to allow that 
they are wave-bows, and would fain assert that ‘‘ they always built 
them so,” were it not that ships’ lines are able to speak for themselves. 
The Americans however adopted the wave-bow without reluctance, 
and avowed it with pleasure the moment they found it give them 
economy and speed. In like manner, the Americans having found 
the wave-bow or hollow bow good for steamers, were quite ready 
to believe that it might be equally good for sailing vessels. We on 
the other hand have kept on asserting that though we could not 
deny its efficacy for steamers it would never do for vessels that were 
meant to carry sail. The Americans on the contrary immediately 
tried it on their pilot-boats, and finding it succeed there, avowed at 
once, in their latest treatise on Naval Architecture, the complete 
success of the principle; not even disclaiming its British origin. 
To prove to ourselves our insensibility to its advantages — they built 
the America, carried out the wave principle to the utmost, and 
despising the prejudices and antiquated regulations of our Clubs, 
came over and beat us. 
The diagrams and models which were exhibited shewed the water- 
lines of the America to coincide precisely with the theoretical wave 
line. 
In one other point the Americans had shewn their implicit faith in 
science, and their disregard of prejudice. Theory says, and has always 
said, ‘‘ Sails should sit flat as boards.”” We have said, ‘‘ They should 
be cut so as to hang in graceful waves.”’ It has always been so; we 
have always done it. The Americans believed in principle, and with 
flat sails went one point nearer to the wind, leaving prejudice and 
picturesque sails far to leeward. 
In other points the Americans beat us by the use of science. They 
use all the refinements of science in their rigging and tackle ; they, 
it is true, have to employ better educated and more intelligent men — 
they do so; and by employing a smaller number of hands, beat us 
in efficiency as well as in economy. 
Faith in the value of Science, for the uses of practice, and a deter- 
mination to carry it straight out with a total disregard of previous 
a 
