ART. CONTENTS OF NO. II., VOL. XVI. ARTICLES. PAGE I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NAVIGATION AND NAVAL ARCHITECTURE, No. IV. New Series. By Gen. H. A. S. DEARBORN, of Massachusetts, author of "A Memoir of the Commerce and Navigation of the Black Sea, and the Trade and Maritime Geography of Turkey and Egypt," etc....... II. TRADE AND COMMERCE OF NORWAY 131 ...... 138 III. MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE-SOCIETY ON THE BASIS OF MUTUAL INSURANCE. By D. R. JACQUES, Esq., of New York... 152 IV. LAW OF DEBTOR AND CREDITOR IN LOUISIANA-No. IV. By FRANCIS II. 172 VI. MINERAL RESOURCES OF MISSOURI. Mineralogical Observations in the State of Missouri. By Dr. LEWIS FEUCHTWANGER, of New York..... 177 VII. THE LEAD REGION. By CHARLES LANMAN, Esq., of New York......... JOURNAL OF MERCANTILE LAW. Decision in the Court of Common Pleas of England Principal and Factor-Consignment-Advances-Sale. COMMERCIAL CHRONICLE AND REVIEW: 182 182 EMBRACING A FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES, ETC., ILLUSTRATED WITH TABLES, ETC., AS FOLLOWS: Commercial Legislation-The Sub-Treasury-Scarcity of American Coins-Importance of a Sound National Coinage-United States Government Stock Prices-Treasury Notes-Leading Features of the Bauks of Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, and New York-Exports from the Port of New York-Prices of Flour in New York at the close of each month-Exports of certain Articles to Great Britain-Receipts and Exports of Flour at New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, 1845 46-Receipts of Produce at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1841, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46—Ohio Canal Tolls, 1842, 43, 44, 45, '46-Shipments of Flour and Wheat from Michigan-Receipts on New York Canals at Tide-water, etc., etc.......... 184-198 VOL. XVI.NO. II. 9 COMMERCIAL STATISTICS. PAGE ...... 194 194 194 Commerce and Navigation of New York, for the year ending 30th December, 1846. .... 196 196 197 British Shipping entered inwards from, and cleared outwards to, Foreign Ports, from '20 to '45 197 Commerce of China, in 1845..... 198 Abstract of Trade under British Flags, at the Ports of Canton and Shanghai, in 1845, as compared with 1846 193 Foreign Trade of Canton, during 1845, compared with 1844....... 198 Export of Teas from China to the United States, in 1845 and '46 199 Export of Silk and sundries from China to the United States, in 1845 and '46 200 JOURNAL OF MINING AND MANUFACTURES. Pennsylvania Iron Trade, from 1844 to 1846...... The Coal Trade of Pennsylvania..... Names and Costs of the Canals and Railroads leading to the Coal Mines of Pennsylvania 201 202 203 205 Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Trade, from its commencement, in 1820, to the close of 1846: showing Receipts from the Various Mines, Total Supply, and Annual Increase of the Trade. 206 The British Copper Trade-Memorial relating to it Finances of New Jersey, in 1846, as derived from the Governor's Message.. 209 Finances of Pennsylvania, showing the Receipts and Expenditures in 1846.. 209 RAILROAD, CANAL, AND STEAMBOAT STATISTICS. Philadelphia and Reading Railroad-Its History, etc. Railroad Iron in the United States, in a Letter to the Editor of this Magazine COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS. 210 212 218 Harbor Decrees of Macao, altered from the Decrees of March 1, 1846 .... HUNT'S MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1847. Art. I.-HISTORICAL SKETCH OF NAVIGATION AND NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. NUMBER IV.-NEW SERIES. The actual habits of our countrymen attach them to commerce. They will exercise it for themselves. Wars, then, must sometimes be our lot; and all the wise can do, is to make the best preparations we can. For either offence or defence, the sea is the field on which we should meet an European enemy. On that element, it is necessary we should possess power.-JEFFerson. HAVING Completed the historical sketch of navigation, down to the ratification of the treaty of peace with Great Britain, in 1783, I regret that I am obliged to suspend the execution of the remainder until I can command more time to devote to that interesting subject, which I hope I shall be enabled to do in the course of the next year;-but, as naval architecture has been only partially noticed in the preceding letters, and as it now claims the intense consideration of this and all the other most powerful maritime nations, I have concluded to devote the two last of the present series to that important branch of nautical science. Still, I can only give a very succinct account of its origin and development, with a few suggestions on the expediency of establishing more exact principles for the attainment of such perfection in the form of ships as shall more certainly combine strength and stability with speed and capacity. It is with great deffidence that I have ventured even to intimate possible improvements in construction; for it may be very justly presumed that such inquiries are not only beyond the domain of a mere private citizen, but exclusively pertain to those intelligent naval officers, architects, and shipbuilders, who, from long experience, must be considered far better qualified to decide whether any beneficial change can be made in the system which now exists. The form and size of vessels, and the manner of building them, have been as various as the purpose of their construction, and the nations and ages in which they have been employed; and, if plans or models of them could be collected, they would form a most interesting and instructive exhibition: but, so imperfectly described are those of the most distinguished maritime empires of antiquity, that it is impossible to obtain even sufficient data, from the surviving works of Greek or Roman authors, to form a definite opinion of their dimensions, contiguration, or appearance, when in a complete condition for commercial adventure or naval enterprise. In civil architecture, the means are ample for becoming perfectly acquainted with its proficiency, as a science and an art-so far, at least, as it was applied to public structures; for not only have many of the magnificent edifices which were reared in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, during the memorable epochs when those mighty nations had reached the culmination point of prosperity, affluence, refinement, and power, escaped the ravages of conquest and time, but the treatise of Vitruvius has been transmitted across that broad and deep gulf of oblivion, in which the libraries of entire kingdoms have been overwhelmed. We are, therefore, enabled · to fully comprehend the scientific principles on which they were projected, the materials employed, the manner in which the work was executed, and the imposing effect which must have been produced when all the architeetural details-sculptures, paintings, and other sumptuous embellishments of the temples, pyramids, obelisks, triumphal arches and columns of Thebes, Tentyra, Athens, Samos, Hæstum, Agrigentum, and the "Eternal City"- -were as perfect as genius, taste, science, art, and wealth, could render them; for sufficient portions of the largest and most magnificient have been perpetuated, to enable a modern architect to make accurate plans and elevations of them, in a restored condition; or to imitate an entire edifice, in such a perfect manner, as to rival the original in execution and elegancy. But ships, having been built of such perishable material as wood, not a fragment remains, nor has a work on naval architecture, by any author of antiquity, descended to us; so that even the manner in which the banks of oars were arranged in the fleets of Alexandria, Greece, Carthage, and Rome, is a problem, which has not yet been satisfactorily explained. The galleys were divided into two classes-the first being called monocrota, or those which had single rows of oars; and the other was distinguished by the term polycrotu, which included such as had three, five, nine, or more tiers of oars. Those commonly used for naval expeditions were of various dinensions, and were designated as biremes, triremes, quadriremes, quinqueremes, euneremes, and tessararemes, according to the number of banks of oars in each. The various series of rowers were called by different names. The Thalamita were those who sat lowest; the Zygite sat in the cross-seats, and the Thranita in the highest. The triremes carried two hundred men, of which one hundred and eighty were rowers, and the rest mariners; so that the Athenian fleet of one hundred and eighty triremes, which was commanded by Conon, in the victorious actions with the Spartan admiral, Pisander, must have contained thirty-six thousand men. The quinqueremes carried four hundred and twenty men, three hundred of whom were rowers; and, as the Roman fleet, at Messina, consisted of three hundred and thirty galleys, and the Carthagenian, at Lelybaum, of three hundred and fifty, most of which were quinqueremes, the former must have contained one hundred and thirty, and the other one hundred and fifty thousand men. Those vessels, then, were necessarily of a very large size; for, besides their crews, the war equipments and provisions requisite for such an immense number of mariners must have occupied a considerable space. But there are accounts of ships of still more enormous dimensions, Hiero, king of Syracuse, caused one to be built, under the direction of Archimedes, the herald of mechanical science, which had twenty banks of oars. It was sent, as a present, to the sovereign of Egypt. The largest vessel on record was constructed by Ptolemy Philopater. It had forty banks of oars. The length was four hundred and twenty-four feet, and the breadth fifty-eight feet. The height of the forecastle, from the water, was sixty feet. The longest oars were fifty-eight feet, and their handles were loaded with lead, to facilitate their motion. The crew consisted of four thousand four hundred men, of which four thousand were Towers. This leviathan of navigation was rather a royal yacht, than a ship of war. Another ship, which was constructed for the voyages of the king and his court on the Nile, was three hundred and thirty feet long, and fortyfive wide. Pliny states, that there never had been seen, navigating the seas, a ship more admirable than that which was constructed by order of the Emperor Caius Caligula, for transporting from Egypt the obelisk which was erected in the Circus of Mount Vaticanus, and the four huge blocks of the same kind of stone which formed the base on which that massive and lofty shaft of granite was reared. It brought, besides, one hundred and twenty thousand bushels of lentils. This ship was so long, that it occupied the greater portion of the left side of the harbor of Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, where it was sunk by the order of the Emperor Claudius, after three towers had been erected upon it of pozzuolana, one of which was used as a pharos. Galleys, with nine banks of oars, were the largest class of ships, which were generally employed in naval warfare. That those indescribable galleys were very large, is to be inferred from various passages in the historical accounts of the maritime expeditions of the ancients; but the manner of arranging such a number of rowers as were employed, has occasioned much speculation among ingenious artisans, antiquarians, and writers on naval architecture;-still, no clear and sati-factory explanation has been given. On medals, and in a few bassorelevios, their are rude representations of war galleys, in all of which the rowers are placed in lines over each other. On the coin of the Emperor Gordian is a galley, in which two banks of oars are conspicuous; and on Trajan's column, in Rome, there is, among the sculptures which embellish it, a galley, in which three banks of oars are placed obliquely, above each other. If only four feet are allowed for each tier of oars, the sides of the vessel, above the water line, even if only carrying nine rows, must have been thirty-six feet. It is, therefore, most probable that there was some mode Pliny's Nat. His., Book xvi., ch. 40. Volcanic ashes, used for forming concrete or beton, or what is called Roman and hy draulic cement. |