VOL. VI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 651 



An Account of some Boohs. N" 77, p- 300G. 



I. Scheeps Bouw en Bestier, that is, Naval Architecture and Conduct ; by 

 N. Witsen. Printed at Amsterdam, 1671, in folio. 



The ingenious and industrious author of this work treats largely, not only 

 of the manner of the naval architecture used by the Greeks and Romans, with 

 their naval exercises, battles, discipline, laws and customs ; but also of the 

 method and way used at this day both in his own country, England, France, 

 and the Indies, with the difference between the manner of building ships, 

 practised by others, from that of the Dutch, and particularly of the Indian 

 way of equipping their ships, and the manner of building galleys : All en- 

 riched with an ample seaman's dictionary, and a great number of illustrating 

 diagrams. 



The whole work is divided into two main parts ; the first contains IQ chap- 

 ters ; whereof, the 1st gives an account of the first builders of ships, and in 

 general of the building of the ancients, both before and after the deluge ; 

 where the author particularly discourses of Noah's Ark ; of divers ships found 

 deep under ground ; of the structure of the ship Argo ; of the navigation of 

 the Phenicians, Rhodians, Corinthians, Egyptians, Tyrians, Cretans, &c. 

 — 1. Delivers the method of naval architecture of the Greeks and Romans, 

 both for war and commerce, together with the manner of equipping their 

 ships rowed with oars, both of single and multiple ranks, and the sitting of the 

 rowers. — 3. Discourses of several sorts of the ancients' structure of ships, and 

 chiefly of the great vessels built by Philopater and Hiero, the pompous make 

 of both which is here represented ; as also of the number and launching of 

 their ships. — 4. Enumerates divers uncommon observables in ships, both of 

 ancient and later times, as in Noah's Ark, the ships of Argo, Theoris, Para- 

 Ion,, Salamine, Magellan, Drake, &c. To which he adds that noble frigate 

 built in England An. 1637, called the Sovereign, of 1637 tuns, having a keel 

 that was to be drawn by 28 oxen and 4 horses ; as also a description of the 

 Spanish Armada of 1588, called the Invincible ; not forgetting the Bucentoro 

 of the Venetians ; nor the Mageleza of the Swedes, a man of war appearing at 

 sea about 100 years since, and having sides of that thickness, that all cannon balls 

 stuck within her boards. In this chapter is inserted a relation of a ship found 

 in the time of Pius II. in the Numidian Sea, \1 fathoms under water, 30 feet 

 long and of a proportionable breadth, built of Cyprus and larix wood, and re- 

 duced to that hardness, that it would scarcely burn ; and was difficult to cut : 

 no signs in it of any rottenness ; its deck covered with paper, linen and leaden 



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