PREFACE. IX 



manufa(5lure have alfo been attended to, in proportion to their im- 

 portance, or the means of obtaining information refpedling their 

 progrefs. 



The important bnfmefs of the fifliery, that great fource of opu- 

 lence and naval power, is traced from the earlieft ages. Whether 

 the Arabians faked any of the fifh they cavight by the nets, hooks, 

 &c. mentioned, in the Book of Job, we are not informed. But from 

 Herodotus, the father of Grecian hillory, w^e know that fifli were 

 cured with fait in Egypt about 1350 years before the Chriftian 

 aefa ; and we find other notices of a trade in fait fifli among feveral 

 of the antient nations. We alfo find that the trade in fait herrings 

 and other fait fifh was an objedl of confiderable importance in Brit- 

 ain and the other weftern parts of Europe long before the age of 

 the Flemifh curer, Beukelens, who is generally fuppofed to have 

 invented the art of curing herrings. The many laws for the promo- 

 tion of this great national objedl, and the progrefs of the chief 

 branches of the fifliery, are carefully and authentically detailed. 



Without navigation commerce can fcarcely be carried to any con- 

 fiderable extent. I have, therefore, endeaA^oured to mark, as far as 

 my limits and the means of information would permit, the gradual 

 progrefs of that moft valuable art, from the firft rude attempts to that 

 high degree of perfe<5lion, in which it may be faid, almoil without 

 any ftretch of veracity, that the powers of the human mind extend 

 beyond their limits, and give life to a machine compofed of timber 

 and canvafs. And as warlike vefTels are, or at leaft ought to be, the 

 protedlors of commerce, I have noted many of the improvements 

 and revolutions of maritime warfare ; and I have given, I truft, a 

 clear explanation of the arrangement of the tires of oars in the war 

 gallies of the antients, that puzzling defideratum in the (ludy of 

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