But one by one these sovereigns of the seas gave up the place to another, and the 18th Century saw a new ruler of the waves, when Great Britain at last bested Napoleonic France at the Nile, at Aboukir, and at Trafalgar.
By this time ships had grown greatly in size, and by the opening of the 19th Century the great three-decked line-of-battle ships were more than 200 feet in length, were 55 feet broad, and displaced 3,000 tons or more. Such a ship could not be termed small even in the light of ships of a century later.
But the opening years of the 19th Century brought forward an invention which, laughed at and disdained by “wind-jammers” for half a century, proved, at last, despite their jeers, the force that swept from the sea all but a handful of the proud vessels that for nearly five thousand years had spread their sails to the winds of Heaven and had gone to the uttermost parts of the earth.
A hundred years after the Charlotte Dundas had churned the waters of the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Clermont had splashed with her paddle-wheels the waters of the Hudson, sailing ships had become rare, romantic links to connect the modern world with that adventurous period that lay before the era of invention and machinery.
With slow steps the 19th Century ushered in the recognition of the power of steam—a new departure in the history of the world. But ere five score years had passed, the wheels of factories whirred in deafening array, electric motors whined with endless energy, and huge propellers, spiralling through the deep green sea, drove great ocean-going palaces from continent to continent, careless of winter’s winds or summer’s sultry calms, all but thoughtless of the powers of nature which, since the dawn of history, had been the ruling thought of all of those who have ventured on the surface of the deep.
CHAPTER II
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SAILS
The origin of sails is buried in the darkness of prehistoric days. Perhaps some hunter, paddling his dugout canoe before the breeze, had his loose skin cape distended by the wind which continued to propel him even when he stopped paddling in order to fasten his garment more closely about him. No doubt something of this kind occurred many times before some prehistoric observer noticed the cause and related to it the effect. Perhaps, then, he held the skin up on his paddle or on his staff, and sat back in comparative comfort while the breeze did his work for him. Certainly such an origin is possible, and man’s desire to accomplish certain ends without expending his energy unnecessarily may, in this as in many other things, have led him to take so important a step toward civilization. From using a skin held on his staff to spreading the skin on a stick which in turn was held up by another stick was but a step, and an excellent means of propelling his canoe had been developed. The perfection of this method of propulsion, however, was slow. How many years before the dawn of written history such sails were in common use we do not know, nor can we guess with any accuracy. It is probable, however, that the time was long, for the very first accounts we have of ships tell us, too, of sails.
I have already traced the development of ships from this early time, and it is not my desire to retrace my steps more than is necessary, for ships have always progressed as their propulsion progressed, and consequently the story of ships is also the story of propulsion. But sails, it would almost seem, had less to do with the early development of ships than oars, which for many thousand years after the dawn of history were apparently more important in the eyes of men of the sea than sails.
Because of this attitude toward oars, and perhaps, too, because of the comparatively restricted waters in which ships originated, the inventive genius of early designers seems to have been expended almost wholly upon the perfection of the use of oars, until, as I have explained, truly great ships were built in which much thought was given to the proper seating of hundreds of oarsmen.
