Dr, Young's Remarks on the 
3H 
5. Lateral Cwvature, 
In such a case there is also an obvious strain tending to 
produce a lateral curvature; and shores are sometimes em- 
ployed to prevent its effects, when a ship is “ hove down" on 
her side. This indeed is comparatively a rare occurrence ; 
but when a series of large waves strikes a ship obliquely, they 
must often act in a similar manner with immense force : the 
elevation on one side may be precisely opposite to the depres- 
sion on the other; and the strain from this cause can scarcely 
be less than the vertical strain already calculated : but its 
effects are less commonly observed, because we have not the 
same means of ascertaining the weakness which results from 
it, by the operation of a permanent cause. When a ship pos- 
sesses a certain degree of flexibility, she may in some measure 
elude the violence of this force by giving way a little for the 
short interval occupied by the passage of the wave ; but it may 
be suspected that her sailing, in a rough sea, must be impaired 
by such a temporary change of form. 
6. Grounding, 
When a ship takes the ground, she may either give way 
at once to the stroke of a rock, or rest on a bottom more or 
less soft, until she is either wholly or partially abandoned by 
the water. In the former case, her resistance must depend in 
great measure on the parts in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the injury: in the latter, it may happen, that she may be 
supported by so large a surface, as to be more in danger of 
parting aloft than of being crippled below. Commonly, how- 
ever, the floor timbers are forced in at one end, the first fut- 
