THE CONQUEST OF TIME AND SPACE 



his first voyage. Sir George Holmes' terse description 

 of this voyage is sufficiently illuminating without elab- 

 oration. "The time occupied was thirty-six days," he 

 says; "and the maximum speed attained was about 

 6 J knots. The vessel pitched horribly!" 



Two full centuries before the discovery of America 

 the rudder had been invented. There is no record to 

 show who was responsible for this innovation, although 

 its superiority over the older steering appliances must 

 have been appreciated fully. But after the beginning 

 of the fourteenth century the rudder seems to have 

 come into general use, entirely supplanting the older 

 side-rudder, or clavus. 



MODERN SAILING SHIPS 



For a full century after the voyage of Columbus little 

 progress was made in ship construction; short, stocky 

 boats, with many decks high above the water-line at 

 bow and stem continuing to be the most popular type. 

 In the opening years of the seventeenth century, how- 

 ever, the English naval architect, Phineas Pett, departed 

 from many of the accepted standards of his time, 

 and produced ships not unlike modem full-rigged sail- 

 ing vessels, except that the stem was still considerably 

 elevated, and the bow of peculiar constmction. One 

 of Pett's ships, The Sovereign of the Seas, was a vessel 

 167 feet long, with 48 foot beam, and of 1,683 tons 

 burthen. The introduction of this type of vessel was a 

 distinct step forward toward modem shipbuilding. 



'L ' 3 tendency of shipbuilders during the eighteenth 



[60] 



