NAVAL ARCHITECTURE.
[A paper on "The Amplitude of Rolling on a Non-synchronous Wave" was read before the Congress of Naval Architects in Paris.]
Last week, the papers tell us, the talented and zealous
Designers who construct our ships their best attention gave
To M. Bertin's writing on what sounds to us exciting—
The amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
How often, crossing over those distressing Straits of Dover,
Where flighty folks grow flabby and where giddy ones grow grave,
We have meditated sadly that we don't encounter gladly
The amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
The amplitude—we'd bear it, and would probably not care, it
Seems but to be an adjunct which perhaps we might not crave.
For that execrable rolling we require much more consoling,
That amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
Yet the rolling might be ended if the waves could be amended
To synchronously swell, all want of symmetry to save,
But we can't be Canutes, can we? He could no more stop it than we—
That amplitude of rolling when non-synchronous the wave.
So Lord Dufferin entreated all the experts, round him seated,
To build a ship where passengers could comfortably shave,
Even where a billiard-table would be absolutely stable,
No amplitude of rolling, though non-synchronous the wave.
Naval Architects, then, hasten to diminish woes which chasten
The happiness of hundreds, be they timorous or brave;
Make a ship, like dry land seeming, where we should not think of dreaming
Of amplitude of rolling, though non-synchronous the wave.