20 Mr. Hartey on Naval Architecture. [Jan. 



Article IV. 



On Naval Architecture. By George Harvey, Esq. FRS. L. & E. 

 (To the Editors of the Annals of Philosophy.) 



GENTLEMEN, Plymouth, Nov. 5, 1825. 



No better method, perhaps, can be adopted for benefitting 

 naval architecture in its present state, than by making it occa- 

 sionally the subject of friendly discussion in our philosophical 

 journals; of freely stating what are its wants and defects; what 

 points require elucidation ; which of its elementary principles 

 are involved in obscurity; and what ought to be the means 

 employed to carrj^ it to that pitch of perfection its ardent and 

 eager cultivators desire. 



Without meanins; to cast the sliahtest reflection on those who 

 have preceded us in the cultivation of this interestuig and 

 important art, it ought freely to be admitted that much remains 

 to be done for its improvement ; and that as every nation almost 

 is aiming more or less at a maritime character, and that we hav? 

 around us so many countries jealous of our national superiority, 

 of our wealth and commercial prosperity, and of all those advan- 

 tages which so pre-eminently distinguish Britain above every 

 other nation, it behoves us as individuals, and collectively as a, 

 nation, to spare no pains in giving to our naval and commercial 

 marine every degree of perfection of which they are susceptible. 



The plan suggested by Mr. Major in the Annals of F/iilosophy 

 for November, is one well calculated to awaken attention; and 

 though the undertaking may at first view appear too wide and 

 extended to be attempted in all the generality proposed, yet if 

 the best ships of each class were selected, and due consideration 

 used, to free it in its execution from those difhculties and 

 embarrassments which sometimes so unexpectedly arise to 

 mpede the experimenter, the most important consequences to 

 naval architecture might be reasonably anticipated from it. A 

 digest of the British navy, which should embrace only the 

 elements proposed by Mr. Major, properly methodized and 

 arranged, would form a body of knowledge of so important and 

 peculiar a kind, that it would be difficult to estimate its value. 

 To me, I am free to confess, the idea is new ; nor in my estima- 

 tion is novelty the most important of its characteristics. It 

 is, in truth, carrying at once into the very heart of ship-building 

 that spirit of" genuine induction which, in so many other branches 

 of knowledge, has produced such mighty consequences; nor do 

 1 know of any one thing so likely at the present moment to 

 increase our stock of information respecting this useful art as 

 the scheme now proposed for considtration. 



