640 WONDERS OF ART, 
common boat, and is In no danger either of sinking or orel' 
turning, whatever be the violence of the winds or waves. 
The first of these boats- went off on tlie 30 th of Januarf, 
1790, and it has so well answered every expectation in the 
most tremendous seas, that, during the last twenty-five 
years, between four and five hundred lives have been saved 
at the entrance of tlie Tyne alone, which otherwise rous* 
nave been lost, and in no instance has it ever failed. Of 
course, every ship and every port ought to be provided with 
its life-boat. 
FIRST-RATE MAN OF WAR. 
Of all the arts and professions which are calculated to 
attract a particular notice, no one appears more astonishing 
and marvellous than that of navigation, in the state in which 
it at present exists. This cannot be made more evident* 
than by taking a retrospective view of the small craft to 
which navigation owes its origin, and comparing them to * 
MAJESTIC FIRST-RATE MAN OF WAR, Containing One tboO' 
sand men, with their provisions, drink, furniture, appareh 
and other necessaries, for many months, besides one hundred 
pieces of heavy ordnance, and bearing all this heavy appa* 
ratus safely to tlie most distant shores. A man in hemth 
consumes, in tlie space of twenty-four hours, about eigbj 
pounds of victuals and drink : consequently eight thousand 
pounds of provisions are daily requisite in such a ship. L®*’ 
her be supposed, then, to be fitted out for three month** 
and it will be found, that she must be laden with 720,000 
pounds of provisions. A large forty-two pounder, if made 
of brass, weighs about 6,100 ; and about 5 , 500 , if of iroa i 
and, in general, there are twenty-eight or thirty of the*® 
on the lower gun-deck, on board a ship of 100 guns ; *b® 
weight of these, exclusive of that of their carriages* 
amounts to 183,000 pounds. On the middle gun-deck 
are thirty twenty-four-pounders, each weighing about 5 , 1 ^ 
pounds, and, therefore, collectively, 153,000 pounds 5 and 
the weight of the twenty-six or twenty-eight twelve' 
pounders on the upper gun-deck, amounts to about 75,40® 
pounds; that of the fourteen six- pounders on the quarter* 
deck, forecastle, and poop, to about 26,000 pounds ; and* 
besides these, there are, in the round-tops, even tbre®' 
