406 Mr. Major on [June, 



Marine colleges, wltli their professors, abound abroad, and 

 extraordinary exertions are now being made by the French 

 government in nautical science ; in this country, we have but 

 one college on a small scale for the purpose, if we may except 

 the Greenwich Asylum : even America, with its numerically 

 inconsiderable martial marine, is on the point of forming an 

 establishment on a large plan, which will give encouragement to 

 the first scientific men to devote their attention to this interest- 

 ing and highly important branch of knowledge. nf 



The introductory remarks of the Papers on Naval Architecture 

 embrace a cursory view of the present state of the science in this 

 country, as compared with others ; and candidly state that the 

 difficulties of the subject have so much impeded its advance- 

 ment, even in those countries where it is best known, that it is 

 still imperfectly understood. This latter remark applies with 

 too much force to the synthetical composition of a ship, as 

 involving a knowledge of the actions and motions of air and 

 water. Indeed, if we wait for a theory of vessels till those phy- 

 sical problems are mathematically investigated in such a manner 

 as may be applicable to shipbuilding, it is to be feared that we 

 shall never have one. By the analysis and comparison of ships, 

 however, there is confident hope of improvement; much has 

 been done in this way towards perfecting ships, as may be easily 

 seen, by looking at the different performances and qualities of 

 many foreign vessels, as compared with those of our own build. 



There is a writer on naval science. Dr. Robison, not men- 

 tioned in this little work, but who has probably treated the sub- 

 jects of the resistance of fluids, of seamanship, and the action of 

 air on surfaces, in a manner as ample and masterly as any writer, 

 in his three articles on them, in the Eucyclopcedia Britannica. 

 He expresses himself very plainly on the little improvement, the 

 pure mathematical investigations of the subject from first princi- 

 ples, has contributed to the determination of the forms and equip- 

 ments of vessels ; and, at the same time, states the great 

 improbability, as mentioned above, of much good ever being 

 efl'ected in that channel. In the same article, he recommends the 

 pursuit of the subject, by investigating the results of facts, in- 

 their causes and efiects. His words are, as may be seen at the 

 commencement of his treatise on seamanship, " But let it be 

 observed, that the theory is defective in one point only; and 

 although this is a most important point, and the errors in it 

 destroy the conclusions of the chief propositions, the reasonings 

 remain in full force, and the modus operandi is precisely such as is 

 stated in the theory. The principles of the art are, therefore, to be 

 found in these treatises; but false inferences have been drawn by 

 computing from erroneous quantities. The rules and practice of 

 the computation, however, are still beyond controversy. Nay, 

 since the process of investigation is legitimate, we may make 

 use of it in order to discover the very circumstance in which we 



