•i82 A. D. 75. 



caution, and even legal reftridions againft winter navigations, have 

 continued in late ages. 



As their coafting navigation neceflarily brought them among fhoals 

 and rocks, it was often neceflary to pafs the whole night lying at anchor. 

 But in crofling well-known bays, or in making a run to the oppofite 

 fide of the Mediterranean, they often ventured to proceed in the night- 

 time, {leering their courfe by the ftars, of which they had more know- 

 lege than is to be found among the untaught part of our modern fea- 

 men, vvhofe compafs diredls their courfe in the darkeft nights with cer- 

 tainty and confidence. 



The navigators of the Erythraean fea were probably fuperior to thofe, 

 who confined their practice to the Mediterranean. We know that they 

 failed in the night, even in their coafting voyages along the African 

 fhore * : and we have at leaft one inftance of great knowlege of the 

 theory of the tides, of the knowlege of the polar ftar, of the nature of 

 the fpring tides, and even the difference of night tides, of the indica- 

 tions of the approach to land, and of the pilotage of the various har- 

 bours, in that judicious merchant and navigator, who wrote the Periplus 

 of the Erythrsean fea. 



They liill preferred fir, and other timber of a fimilar nature, as the 

 Greeks did in the age of Theophraftus, for building their veflels, which 

 they bolted with brafs in preference to iron. They covered the bot- 

 toms with wax, which was at leaft fometimes mixed with pitch. [Theo- 

 phrajl. L. v, c. 8 — Flin. L. xvi, cc, 10, 12. — Artiani Teripl. Font. Eux. 

 p. 117, ed. Blancardi. — Veget. de re mil. L. iv, c. 34.] An inftance of ex- 

 traordinary attention to the prefervation of the bottom appeared in a 

 veflx;!, laid to have belonged to Trajan, which was dug up in the fifteenth 

 century from the Lake Nemorefe, or Lake of Aricia. It was doubly 

 planked with pine and cyprefs, over which there was a coat of pitch, to 

 which a covering of linen was faftened, and over all a ftieathing of flieet 

 lead (' chartam plumbeam') faftened with nails of brafs f. \_Leoms Bapt. 

 Alherti de re adificatoria L. v, c, 12.] 



The mafts and yards were made of fir on account of its lightnefs. 

 [Plin. L. xvi,t:. 39.] The ufe of three mafts, introduced by Archimedes 

 in Hiero's great fliip, [fee above, p. 98J does not appear to have become 

 general ; for I find but one inftance (in Julius Pollux) of a ftiip of three 



• Marinus, as quoted by Ptolemy [/-. i, c. 7] be admitted as very fuffitient evidence of their 



quotes Diodoriis Saniiiis, as faying, that the navi- iinftuinal navigation, though it is bUuidtrcd iu 



jjators in tlie Indian ocean, when p;oing ftom In- palling throuc;li fo many hands; fornofeanianciuld 



dia to Limyrica (which, however, is a part of In- be fo ignorant as to think, tliat the liars would 



dia) kept the conlltllation called the Bull in the bear on the fame part of his veffel through the 



middle of the fl:y, and the Pleiades upon the mid- whole night. 



(lie of the yards ; and thofe who failed from f The French Kncyclopedic [a;V. Dculltigc des 



Arabia for Azania on tlic eafl coaft of Africa vaijfiau.v] has Girfi pitch, and nail? < f cc/>^a-, in- 



Heercd by the liar Canopus. This account may (lead of Wacif pitch and nails of /r./jr. 



