766 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



That this, however, was not the 

 case, is too clearly shown in va- 

 rious passages of the ancients, to 

 admit of any doubt on the head. 



General Melville, whose repeat- 

 ed voyages across the Atlantic had 

 enabled him to unite to the theory 

 of navigation much more practical 

 knowledge than usually falls to the 

 lot of a landman, despairing of be- 

 ing enabled to untie this Gordian 

 knot, by his researchesamongst the 

 most enlightened and experienced 

 seamen, at last, on his way home 

 from his government, laying autho- 

 rities and theories of every kind 

 entirely aside, inquired in himself 

 what were the objects of the an- 

 cients, in the arrangement of their 

 rowers. To this question, the na- 

 tural answer was celerity' and impe- 

 tus in their movements. The next 

 question was, how this celerity 

 was to be obtained ; and the answer 

 could only be by introducing the 

 greatest possible quantity of motive 

 power into a given space. By 

 placing the rowers not vertically, 

 but in diagonal order, up the per- 

 pendicular side of a ship, it was 

 true that they could be placed in 

 considerably less space than when 

 arranged one directly over the 

 head of another. This, however, 

 was not enough ; and, it occurred 

 to the general, that by means of 

 a double obliquity in the arrange- 

 ment of the rowers, every possible 

 advantage might be obtained. He 

 therefore supposed that the side of 

 the ship, instead of rising vertical- 

 ly from the water, was at the dis- 

 tance of a few feet from the sur- 

 face, laid outwards, diverging from 

 the perpendicular at an angle of 

 perhaps forty-five degrees. Upon 

 this inclined side, the seats for the 

 rowers were placed, slanting dia- 



gonally upwards ; at the same time 

 that, by the inclination of the 

 side, they slanted diagonally out- 

 v/ards. The consequences of this 

 double obliquit)' were, that a rower 

 raised only from fifteen to eighteea 

 inches above the rower below 

 him, instead of four or five times 

 that distance, as in some other 

 schemes, would be able to sit and 

 row without receiving any inter- 

 ruption in his labour from the 

 others adjoining to him, and that 

 even the uppermost oars in a quin- 

 quereme, were not of an unma- 

 nageable length. 



This theory not only removed 

 all the objections to the former 

 systems, hut it explained a multi- 

 tude of passages in history, hitherto 

 inexplicable; and it was discover- 

 ed to be perfectly conformable to 

 the representations still remaining 

 on ancient coins, and in the paint- 

 ings discovered in the subterraneous 

 ruins of Herculaneum. 



But a volume would be requisite u 

 to contain a distinct relation of the H 

 curious and important discoveries [ 

 and inventions, made by general 

 M. and of the systematic progress 

 of his mind in such discoveries and 

 inventions. Amongst those are to 

 be reckoned, the discovery he 

 made, from principles previously 

 laid down, of the Roman camps in 

 the vale of Strathmore, in Scot- 

 land ; of the construction of the 

 catapult, ballista, and other ancient 

 warlike machines ; of that species 

 of artillery known by the name of 

 carronades, from the great founde- 

 ry in Scotland, where they were 

 first made, of which the largest are 

 now generally called from the 

 weight of the shot they receive, 

 sixty-eight pounders. The grand 

 improvement, however, which 



general 



