200 THE SEA. 



Ireland, and found tin and lead, and people who used boats of skin or leather. Aristotle 

 tells us that the Carthaginians were the first to increase the size of their galleys from 

 three to four banks of oars. 



Under the dynasty of the Ptolemies the maritime commerce of Egypt rapidly 

 improved. The first of these kings caused the erection of the celebrated Pharos or 

 lighthouse at Alexandria, in the upper storey of which were windows looking seaward, 

 and inside which fires were lighted by night to guide mariners to the harbour. Upon 

 its front was inscribed, "King Ptolemy to God the Saviour, for the benefit of 

 sailors." His successor, Ptolemy Philadelphus, attempted to cut a canal a hundred 

 cubits in width between Arsinoe, on the Red Sea, not far from Suez, to the eastern 

 branch of the Nile. Enormous vessels were constructed at this time and during the 

 succeeding reigns. Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, is said to have owned five hundred 

 galleys and two thousand smaller vessels. Lucian speaks of a vessel that he saw in 

 Egypt that was one hundred and twenty cubits long. Another, constructed by 

 Ptolemy Philopator, is described by Calixenus, an Alexandrian historian, as two hundred 

 and eighty cubits, say 420 feet, in length. She is said to have had four rudders, 

 two heads, and two sterns, and to have been manned by 4,000 sailors (meaning 

 principally oarsmen) and 3,000 fighting-men. Calixenus also describes another built 

 during the dynasty of the Ptolemies, called the Thalawegits, or " carrier of the bed- 

 chamber." This leviathan was 300 feet in length, and fitted up with every conceivable 

 kind of luxury and magnificence with colonnades, marble staircases, and gardens ; from 

 all which it is easy to infer that she was not intended for sea-going purposes, but 

 was probably an immense barge, forming a kind of summer palace, moored on the 

 Nile. Plutarch in speaking of her says that she was a mere matter of curiosity, for 

 she differed very little from an immovable building, and was calculated mainly for show, 

 as she could not be put in motion without great difficulty and danger. 



But the most prodigious vessel on the records of the ancients was built by order of 

 Hiero, the second Tyrant of Syracuse, under the superintendence of Archimedes, about 230 

 years before Christ, the description of which would fill a small volume. Athena?us has 

 left a desci'iption of this vast floating fabric. There was, he states, as much timber 

 employed in her as would have served for the construction of fifty galleys. It had all 

 the varieties of apartments and conveniences necessary to a palace such as banqueting- 

 rooms, baths, a library, a temple of Venus, gardens, fish-ponds, mills, and a spacious 

 gymnasium. The inlaying of the floors of the middle apartment represented in various 

 colours the stories of Homer's " Iliad '," there were everywhere the most beautiful paintings, 

 and every embellishment and ornament that art could furnish were bestowed on the 

 ceilings, windows, and every part. The inside of the temple was inlaid with cypress-wood, 

 the statues were of ivory, and the floor was studded with precious stones. This vessel 

 had twenty benches of oars, and was encompassed by an iron rampart or battery; it 

 had also eight towers with walls and bulwarks, which were furnished with machines of 

 war, one of which was capable of throwing a stone of 300 pounds weight, or a dart of 

 twelve cubits long, to the distance of half a mile. To launch her, Archimedes invented 

 a screw of great power. She had four wooden and eight iron anchors; her mainmast, 



