SHIELDS SHIP. 



227 



ing ;v few fishermen's huts, to u populous, well-built, 

 and thriving town. The inhabitants are chiefly 

 employed in the exportation of coals, and in the 

 various trades connected with shipping, in respect 

 to which it may vie even with Newcastle, upwards 

 of four hundred vessels being annually laden at this 

 port. The harbour is capable of containing 2000 

 sail of vessels, and at spring-tide ships of 500 tons 

 burden cross its mouth in safety ; ships of 300 tons 

 burden can also load or unload at the quay. Popu- 

 lation in 1841, 7o09. 



SHIELDS, SOUTH; a sea-port town in the 

 county palatine of Durham, situated on the south 

 side of the Tyne, at its confluence with the German 

 ocean, 278 miles N. by W. from London. This 

 place, like its opposite neighbour, enjoys all the 

 advantages of trade and commerce, in common with 

 Newcastle, particularly in the coal trade, for most 

 of the larger colliers take in the'r lading at this 

 haven, where 500 vessels are usually lying at one 

 time. The inhabitants are chiefly employed in ship- 

 building, in manufactories for all kinds of glass, ! 

 soap-works, roperies, and various other trades. Po- 

 pulation in 1841, 9082. 



SHIGEMOONI. See Lama. 



SHIITES (heretics] ; a name given by the Sun- 

 nites to all Mohammedans, who do not acknowledge 

 the Sunna as a law. The Shiites believe that Ali, | 

 the fourth caliph after Mohammed, was his first 

 lawful successor. The Persians are shiites. From 

 them the sect of Ismaelites separated. See the 

 article Islam. 



SHILLING (Anglo-Saxon, skylling ; Swedish, 

 shilling ; German, schilling) ; the name of a coin of 

 very different value in different places (see Coin), 

 the etymology of which is very uncertain. It ap- 

 pears to have been originally only a money of ac- 

 count in England, or the twentieth part of a pound ; 

 and, according to some antiquarians, the first Eng- 

 lish shillings were coined in the beginning of the 

 sixteenth century. 



SHILLOOKS. See Sennaar. 



SHINGLES. See Erysipelas. 



SHIP ; a locomotive machine, adapted to trans- 

 portation over rivers, seas, and 'oceans. As no 

 human device is more worthy of admiration than 

 the ship, so no investigation can be more curious 

 than to trace, step by step, the slow progress of 

 improvement, from the first rude attempt of incipi- 

 ent navigation, down to the perfection of modern 

 times. And here, at the very threshold of the in- 

 quiry, our attention is arrested by a singular fact 

 the uniformity with which the human mind, 

 prompted by the same desires, and aided by the 

 same faculties, arrives at the same results. How 

 small,- indeed, is the difference between the canoe 

 of the Esquimaux, framed of the bones of beasts 

 and fishes, and covered with the skins of seals, and 

 those in which the poets show us Dardanus fleeing 

 before the deluge, or Charon conducting his trem- 

 bling charge to the shades below; between those 

 said to have been used in primitive times by the 

 Egyptian, the Ethiopian, and the Arab, and the 

 light barks of the early Britons, made of osiers and 

 hides, which Caesar imitated in Spain to extricate 

 himself from the perilous situation in which he was 

 held by the lieutenants of Pompey ! In what does 

 the canoe of the American Indian, of the islander of 

 the south seas, and of the native African, differ from 

 those which the savage Germans hollowed from a 

 single tree, in the days of Pliny? 



It is an old tradition, that the first idea of the 



canoe was suggested by a split reed, seen by some 

 ingenious savage floating safely upon the billow. 

 Be this as ii may, there can be little doubt that the 

 raft, as it is the most easy and obvious means of 

 crossing the water, was likewise of most early in- 

 vention. The savage who first' ventured forth upon 

 a solitary tree, that the river had brought within 

 his reach, must have found his situation unsteady 

 and precarious: his ingenuity suggested the idea of 

 fastening several together, and the conveyance be- 

 came at once a safe one. The earliest records 

 which history affords on this subject, show the 

 Egyptians traversing the Nile upon rafts. The 

 Phoenicians also availed themselves of the invention; 

 and we are told that many islands, even the remote 

 ones of Sicily and Corsica, were colonized with no 

 better assistance. This will seem less improbable, 

 if we remember that the Peruvians'still make sea 

 voyages on their raft, called balza, from the spongy 

 tree of which it is made. It consists of a number 

 of logs tightly bound together, and strengthened 

 transversely by beams. They are tapered at the 

 prow, to facilitate the division of the water, whilst 

 vertical planks, descending below the surface, pre- 

 vent drift, and enable it to sail towards the wind. 

 These balzas we have met in the open ocean, loaded 

 with from ten to twenty tons of merchandise, and 

 contending effectually with the trade wind, which 

 prevails along the coast of Peru. This form of 

 ship is not, however, always safe : lifted as the logs 

 are unequally upon the waves, the thongs which 

 bind them together, if old or neglected, sometimes 

 break or disengage ; the bark of the mariner disap- 

 pears treacherously beneath him, or the logs, crash- 

 ing rudely together, serve for his destruction. Yet 

 the attempts of the uncivilized navigator do not al- 

 ways shun comparison with those of a maturer age 

 We find the native of North-western America, in 

 his little skin-covered bark of admirable symmetry, 

 venturing forth amid the most boisterous waves, 

 which pass harmless over him, and outstripping the 

 fleetest barge in his rapid course. The flying proa 

 of the Ladrone islands sails towards the wind with 

 unequalled nearness, and with a velocity far greater 

 than civilized man has ever attained, with all the 

 aids of philosophy. 



It were a vain task to record the various fables 

 connected with the origin and improvement of ships, 

 though the inventors were esteemed worthy to take 

 rank among the gods, and even the ships to be 

 translated to the heavens, where they still shine 

 among the constellations ; how Daedalus invented 

 the art of flying, to escape from the labyrinth of 

 Crete an allusion to the sails with which he eluded 

 the pursuit of Minos ; how Hercules sailed with 

 the hide of a lion, which was only his well known 

 garment hung up for the purpose ; or how the first 

 idea of the sail was taken from the poetic voyages 

 of the nautilus ; how Atlas contends for the inven- 

 tion of the oar, and how many heroes claim the 

 honour of the rudder. These inventions all, doubt- 

 less, originated in the earliest dawnings of civiliza- f 

 tion, before there were any means of recording 

 them; and the ascription of them to individuals 

 may have formed the pastime of succeeding poets. 

 It may not, however, be equally vain to inquire 

 what was the nature of ships among those nations 

 which made the first advances towards civib'zation, 

 We find that the Egyptians, in improving upon the 

 rafts and canoes which they first used, built vessels 

 of stout joists of acanthus wood, which were made / 

 to lap over like tiles, and were fastened with wooden 



