22 Mr. Harvey on Naval Architecture. [Jan. 



have disclosed relations never before anticipated, and conclu- 

 sions never before imagined. Thus would naval architecture be 

 benefitted ; and an art, which, it is not too much to say, is of the 

 very first importance for the British nation to cultivate and 

 encourage, would be freed from the trammels of uncertain apd 

 antiquated rules, and placed on a basis better suited to its 

 dignity and value. 



I have one word, however, to say on resistances — a subject 

 ■which I contend it is of very great importance for our naval 

 constructors to be acquainted with. It is no argument because 

 the labours of the French Academicians, and of the Society for 

 the Promotion of Naval Architecture, have not produced all 

 that practical benefit which might have been anticipated from 

 their high talents, and the unwearied assiduity with which the 

 subject was prosecuted by thera, that therefore no better infor- 

 mation could be derived from a course of experiments on some 

 other plan. Rather should such difficulties and obstacles 

 operate as a stimulus to new exertions ; to inquiries tvhy so 

 much apparently well-directed labour should have produced so 

 little that is of practical value, and not in hopeless despair 

 abandon an inquiry because our predecessors achieved not all 

 we desire. 



Finally, it is much to be desired that we should be furnished, 

 before the inquiry is undertaken, with a table of the principal 

 elements which such an investigation as that under consideration 

 ought to embrace, arranged in the order best adapted to the 

 relations they bear to each other. A methodical statement of 

 our actual wants in the first place would be one step towards 

 their attainment ; and no better method, perhaps, can for the 

 present be devised, than arranging the objects desired in 

 tabular and systematk forms. Nor should those forms embrace 

 merely the ultimate results of the elements required, but the 

 necessary and essential steps on which the respective elements 

 depend. This plan of tabulating the steps and results of our 

 inquiries is one of very great importance in the present state of 

 the sciences, since it exhibits at once what are our actual 

 possessions, and what further aid we require to lead them 

 onwards to perfection. The advantages of this method of con- 

 ducting investigations are now beginning to be felt, and, as 

 knowledge and the useful arts extend, it will become more and 

 more necessary. 



