NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. 29 



means should not be taken to avail ourselves of it : but unhappily 

 such is the force of prejudice that, unless some alteration should 

 be adopted in this institution, it will be in vain to expect advan- 

 tage from it. 



The obiection urged against this establishment, namely, that the 

 scie^ititic education it gives to its members, prechides them from 

 the aftainnicnt cf a due knowledge of the practical construction of 

 our ships, is so absurd, that none but weak or jealous minds could 

 ever have brought it forward. Shall it be laid down, in the pre- 

 sent age, as an axiom, that a profound ignorance of the principles 

 of his art is the one thing essential to the foiination of what is 

 gerierally meant by the term " practical man ■" We contend that, 

 having made, in vain, a long and most indulgent trial of a system 

 without science, if we may use such an expression, we must extend 

 to one in alliance with it, a like patronage, before we can be allow- 

 ed to pronounce a fair and legitimate judgment upon its efficiency. 



7$ 7^ yf- yf- yf "ft "^ 



But, to return to the Exj)erimental Squadron : it is with regret 

 that we must conclude, upon a careful consideration, that, although 

 the experiments are carried on with so much vigor and interest, 

 they are evidently founded on imaginative views, and that there 

 cannot exist any thing like legitimate data where so many failures 

 and anomalous results obtain. Who can read the account of the 

 first Experimental Squadron, without immediately perceiving that 

 the constructors of the contending vessels, liowever sanguine each 

 might have been of the success of his paiticular fancy, met with 

 nothing but the most perplexing results ? We see sometimes one 

 and sometimes the other vessel claim the palm of excellence, and 

 finally leaving the subject as much in the dark as ever. This is 

 the natural consequence of the non-application of inductive phi- 

 losophy to the question before us, and the most important cosicju- 

 sion that can be gathered from the exj:!eriment is, that we have be- 

 gun at the wrong end, and that it is high time to employ analysis 

 instead of synthesis to eflect the desired objects : for in the [)resent 

 state of the theory of naval construction in this country, there are 

 yet no data existing to effect witli precision and confidence, the 



synthetical composition of a ship. 



******* 



After so many years of trial with the present nearly invariable 

 set of principal dimensions, during which period it may be said, 

 that every possible contour of hull has been experimented on with 

 them, we are inclined to think that almost all has been done that 

 could be done under such restrictions, and that some great step 

 must be made in one or other of the principal dimensions them- 

 selves, with correspondent alterations in the masting, before we 

 can expect to see a decided and great improvement in the sailing 

 of our ships. 'J he depth is an element whicii has arrived at its 

 limit from very apparent external causes ; but tiie length and 

 breadth remain to the skilful constructor without any such clogf (o 

 his endeavors ; and he has oniy to accommodate their relation to 



