BENTHAM. 9 



he originally intended, from his having become attached to a 

 Russian lady of considerable rank and beauty; but although this 

 attachment was mutual, nothing came of it, owing to the opposition 

 of the lady's relatives, on the score of Bentham being a foreigner. 

 During this period Bentham had the direction of the Fontanka 

 Canal, in connection with which he invented a peculiar form of pile- 

 driving machine, in which the weight was attached to a sort of 

 endless ladder, moved by a man stepping on it, on the principle 

 that a man's weight exceeds considerably hie muscular strength. 



After the completion of the canal, Prince Poteinkin induced Ben- 

 tham to accept military service, and appointed him to the command 

 of a battalion stationed at Critcheff, in White Russia, with the 

 rank of lieutenant-colonel. As the prince's manufactories were in 

 the neighbourhood of CritchefF, Bentham offered to superintend 

 them. This offer was gladly received ; and as the management of 

 the works had been previously grossly misconducted, the lieutenant- 

 colonel soon perceived the necessity of his own constant inspection 

 of what was going on, and for this purpose contrived a panoptican 

 building or inspection-house, the centre of which commanded a 

 view of all its parts. His brother Jeremy was on a visit whilst he 

 was devising this panoptican, and the contrivance has frequently on 

 this account been attributed to Jeremy, although in his works 

 Jeremy repeatedly says it was his brother's. Up to this time the 

 panoptican principle has only been adopted in gaols; but Jeremy 

 Bentham has shown that it is equally desirable for a great variety 

 of buildings. 



Bentham's next invention was a sort of jointed vessel, for the 

 conveyance of the Empress Catherine down the Dnieper and its 

 affluents, which were shallow, tortuous, and their navigation much 

 impeded by sandbanks and sunken trees. This vessel was in six 

 links, drawing only six inches of water when loaded, and with 124 

 men at the oars on board. Many more were constructed on the 

 same principle, for carrying the produce of the prince's establish- 

 ments and manufactories to the Black Sea. 



On the breaking out of war with Turkey, Bentham was sent to 

 the south with his battalion, of which, according to orders, he had 

 made sailors and shipwrights ; and shortly afterwards, by the joint 

 order of Souvaroff and Admiral Mardvinoff, he was commanded to 

 fit out vessels at Cherson to oppose the enemy. It happened that 

 he had the sole command of the arsenal at Cherson, in which he 

 found an immense stock of ordnance of all descriptions, but no bet- 

 ter navigable vessels than the pleasure-galleys which had brought 

 the empress and her suite down the Dneiper. But nothing daunted, 

 Bentham set to work. He reflected that it is not size of vessel 

 which ensures victory, but that it is gained by the fleet that can 

 throw the heaviest weight of missile in the shortest time, joined to 

 the facility of manoeuvring vessels. Strengthening his vessels as 



B 3 



