t, therefore, to pause before we decide, that any deficiency in
scientific skill rendered it a useless and unwieldy hulk. That it was
not calculated to keep the sea when an English frigate would be sailing
under close-reefed topsails, there can be no doubt; but we must know the
intentions with which the ancients constructed their enormous ships,
before we decide on their insufficiency. The ship constructed by
Archimedes had twenty banks of oars, and was built as a man-of-war. It
was sent from Syracuse to Egypt, as a present to Ptolemy Philopater, and
was laid up in the docks of Alexandria.

But the largest vessel on record was a ship constructed for Ptolemy
Philopater, which had forty banks of oars. This vessel was rather a
royal yacht, built to gratify the vanity of the court, than a ship
intended for any useful purpose. It was 424 feet in length, and 58
broad. The height of the forecastle from the water was 60 feet. The
longest oars were 58 feet, and their handles were loaded with lead to
facilitate their motion. The equipage consisted of 4400 men, of whom
4000 were rowers. A ship constructed for the voyages of the court on the
Nile, was 330 feet long, and 45 feet wide.[1]

These passages are sufficient to show the immense size of ancient ships,
and to prove that their system of naval architecture could not have been
directed to contend against contrary winds, but was calculated to
transport the largest burdens.

[1] A modern first-rate is about 205 feet long, 54 feet broad, and
draws 25 feet water. Its weight is about 4600 tons, when the guns and
provisions are on board. Of course, the weight even of Ptolemy's immense
ship could not have approached this. Athen. Deipnosophistae, lib. v.
Sec. 37, (p. 203.) Our skill in transporting large blocks of marble is so
small, that we have been compelled to cut in two some of the Lycian
monuments of no great size.

We must now notice the passages which have been supposed to controvert
the account we have given of the completion of the canal between the
Nile and the Red Sea. The first is a passage of Pliny the Elder, which
asserts that Ptolemy Philadelphus only carried the canal to the bitter
lakes. "Ex quo navigabilem alveum perducere in Nilum, qua parte ad Delta
dictum decurrit, sexagies et bis centena mill. passuum intervallo, (quod
inter flumen et Rubrum mare interest,) primus omnium Sesostris Aegypti
rex cogitavit: mox Darius Persarum: deinde Ptolemaeus sequens: qui et
d