368 Navigation. 



Societies, afford a very respectable specimen of the 

 talents and erudition of our countrymen, and hold 

 up to view several names with distinguished ho- 

 nour/ 



CHAPTER VII. 



NAVIGATION. 



Navigation, considered both as an art and 

 a science, was greatly advanced during the late 

 century. This advancement was owing to a va- 

 riety of circumstances, which are worthy of being 

 transiently noticed in the present sketch. 



The Construction of Ships has received, in 

 modern times, very considerable improvements. 

 That method of building which is favourable to 

 rapid sailing, has been, for a number of years, 

 gaining ground, in place of the old method, in 

 which capacity was chiefly consulted. New and 

 advantageous plans of rigging vessels have been 

 adopted, and better modes of working them than 

 were formerly in use. In the science of naval 

 architecture, and of navigation generally, perhaps 

 no individual has done more to useful purpose than 

 EiTLER, of whose ingenious and excellent labours, 

 in several departments of science, we have had fre- 

 quent occasion to speak. In consequence ot his 

 celebrated publications on this subject, the mathe^ 

 maticians of Trance were incited to study the 



s The first volume on the higher branches of the mathematics ever pre- 

 sented to the public by a native American, made its appearance in the course 

 of the current year (1802), under the title of Essays, Mathematical and 

 Physical^ by Jared Mansfield, of Ncw-Havcn, Connecticut. This 

 writer displays a degree of mathematical genius and erudition which does 

 honour to himself and his country. 



