Popular Technology Volume I Part 16

4. The sailors of antiquity confined their navigation chiefly to the rivers, lakes, and inland seas, seldom venturing out of sight of land, unless, from their knowledge of the coasts ahead, they were certain to meet with it again in a short time. When they thus ventured from the land, or were driven from it by tempests, the stars and planets were their only guides.

5. The qualifications of a skilful pilot or master, even for the Mediterranean seas, in those days, required more study and more practical information, than are necessary to render a mariner a complete general navigator, in the present improved state of the science of navigation; for then he must needs be acquainted, not only with the general management of the s.h.i.+p, but also with all the ports, land-marks, rocks, quicksands, and other dangers, which lay in the track of his course. Besides this, he was required to be familiar with the course of the winds, and the indications that preceded them, together with the movements of the heavenly bodies, and the influence which they were supposed to exert on the weather. Nor was the ability to read the various omens which were gathered from the sighing of the wind in the trees, the murmurs of the waters, and their dash upon the sh.o.r.e, the flight of birds, and the gambol of fishes, a qualification to be dispensed with.

6. A voyage, in ancient times, was a momentous undertaking, and was usually preceded by sacrifices to those G.o.ds who were supposed to preside over the winds and the waves. All omens were carefully regarded; and a very small matter, such as the perching of swallows on the s.h.i.+p, or an accidental sneeze to the left, was sufficient to delay departure. When, under proper auspices, a vessel or fleet had set sail, and had advanced some distance, it was customary to release a number of doves, which had been brought from home. The safe arrival of these birds at the houses of the voyagers, was considered an auspicious omen of the return of the fleet.

7. Having escaped the multiplied dangers of the sea, the sailors, on their return, fulfilled the vows which they had made before their departure, or in seasons of peril, offering thanks to Neptune, and sacrifices to Jupiter, or some other of their G.o.ds, to whose protection they may have committed themselves. Those who had suffered s.h.i.+pwreck, felt themselves under greater obligations of grat.i.tude; and, in addition to the usual sacrifices, they commonly offered the garment in which they had been saved, together with a pictorial representation of the disaster. If the individual escaped only with life, his clothing having been totally lost, his hair was shorn from the head, and consecrated to the tutelar deity.

8. There is much that is beautiful in these simple acts of piety; and similar customs, with regard to s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners, are still in existence in the Catholic countries of the Mediterranean; but the wors.h.i.+p of the heathen deities having been discontinued, a favourite saint, or perchance the true G.o.d, is subst.i.tuted for them. Although such acts of piety may not avail to avert impending danger, yet their natural tendency doubtless is to inspire courage to meet it, when it may arise.

9. The Carthaginians, for several centuries, were more extensively engaged in commerce, than any other people of antiquity; and, as they carried on their lucrative trade with other nations and their own colonies, by means of s.h.i.+ps, they exceeded all others in the art of navigation. Not content with exploring every nook and corner of the Mediterranean, they pa.s.sed the Pillars of Hercules, as the promontories of the Straits of Gibraltar were then called, and visited the Atlantic coasts of Europe, as far north as the Scilly Islands, then denominated the Ca.s.sorides. It is a.s.serted by Pliny, that Hanno even circ.u.mnavigated Africa.

10. The destruction of Carthage by the Romans, in the year before Christ 146, interfered with improvements in the art of navigation; and the invasion of the northern barbarians, several centuries afterwards, extinguished nearly all the knowledge which had been previously acquired; nor was it again revived, and brought to the state in which it existed in the most flouris.h.i.+ng era of antiquity, until about the middle of the fourteenth century.

11. After the period just mentioned, improvements in this art followed each other in close succession. The chief cause of this rapid advance was the discovery of the polarity of the magnet, and the consequent invention of the mariner's compa.s.s. The power of the loadstone to attract iron, was early known to the Greeks and Chinese; but its property of pointing in a particular direction, when suspended, and left to move freely, was not suspected until about the year 1200 of our era.

12. At first, mariners were accustomed to place the magnetic needle on a floating straw, whenever they needed its guidance; but, in 1302, one Flavio Giaio, an obscure individual of the kingdom of Naples, placed it on a permanent pivot, and added a circular card. Still, it was nearly half a century after this, before navigators properly appreciated, and implicitly relied on this new guide. The compa.s.s did not reach its present improved state, until the middle of the sixteenth century.

13. As soon as the reputation of this instrument had become well established, navigation a.s.sumed a bolder character; and the capacity of vessels having been enlarged to meet this adventurous spirit, oars were laid aside as inapplicable, and sails alone were relied upon, as means of propulsion.

14. Navigation, in the early days of its revival, was indebted to the Portuguese for many valuable improvements. To them, also, is the world under obligation for many splendid discoveries, among which was that of a pa.s.sage by sea to India. This long-desired discovery was made in 1497, by Vasco de Gama, who had been sent out for the purpose by Emanuel, king of Portugal.

15. Five years before Vasco de Gama had found his way to India, by the way of the Cape of Good Hope, Columbus made his discovery of the New World. This great man had conceived or adopted the idea, that the form of our earth was spherical, in opposition to the generally received opinion, that it was an extended plane; and learning that India stretched to an unknown distance eastward, he supposed, that, by sailing in an opposite direction, the navigator would meet with its eastern extremity.

16. Pursuing this idea, he applied successively to the governments of several states and kingdoms for patronage to enable him to test its correctness; and having, at length, succeeded in obtaining three small vessels, with the necessary equipments, from Ferdinand and Isabella, sovereigns of Arragon and Castile, he proceeded on his proposed voyage, which resulted in the discovery of the American continent.

17. These two great discoveries gave another powerful impulse to navigation; and inventions and improvements multiplied in rapid succession. The learned and ingenious, who at different times have turned their attention to the subject of navigation, have supplied the mariner with various means, by which he can direct his course on the deep with accuracy and certainty.

18. The instruments now employed in navigation, are the mariner's compa.s.s, the azimuth compa.s.s, the quadrant, the s.e.xtant, the chronometer, the half minute-gla.s.s, the log, and the sounding-line. In addition to these, the general navigator needs accurate maps and charts, lists of the lat.i.tude and longitude of every part of the world, the time of high water at every port, and a book of navigation, containing tables, to aid him in performing various calculations with facility; and, with a view to calculate the longitude by observation, he should be furnished with the Nautical Almanac, containing the places and declinations of the fixed stars and planets, and especially the distances of the moon from the sun and other heavenly bodies.

19. The mariner's compa.s.s, as has been before observed, is employed to indicate the various points of the horizon; but the magnetic needle varying more or less from the exact northern and southern direction, the azimuth compa.s.s is used, to show the degree of that variation. The quadrant and s.e.xtant are employed to ascertain the alt.i.tude and relative position of the heavenly bodies, that the mariner may determine the lat.i.tude and longitude in which his vessel may be. The chronometer is nothing more than a watch, designed to measure time with great accuracy. This instrument is used to determine the longitude.

20. The log is used for ascertaining the velocity of the s.h.i.+p on the water. It consists of a quadrangular piece of wood, eight or nine inches long, to which is attached a small cord, having knots in it, at proper distances from each other. In the application, the log is thrown upon the water, where it will not be disturbed by the wake of the s.h.i.+p; and the cord, being wound upon a reel, pa.s.ses from it as fast as the vessel moves in the water. The number of knots, which pa.s.s off every half minute, indicates the number of miles which the s.h.i.+p sails per hour; hence, in nautical language, _knots_ and _miles_ are synonymous terms. The sounding-line is a small cord, with several pounds of lead of a conical figure attached to it; and is employed in trying the depth of the water, and the quality of the bottom.

21. Navigation is either _common_ or _proper_. The former is usually called coasting, as the vessel is either on the same or neighboring coast, and is seldom far from land, or out of sounding. The latter is applied to long voyages upon the main ocean, when considerable skill in mathematics and astronomy, together with an aptness in the use of instruments for celestial observations, are required in the captain or master.

22. The application of steam to the purposes of navigation, is one of the greatest achievements of modern science and art. The great utility of this agent is particularly conspicuous in our vast country, where large rivers and bays and mighty lakes are numerous, and where an energetic people and an active commerce require a rapid intercommunication. Steamboats are but little used on the great oceans; as merchandise can there be more cheaply and safely transported in vessels propelled by sails. Since the year 1839, two lines of steam packets have been running regularly between this country and Great Britain. They commonly occupy, in crossing the Atlantic, between twelve and fifteen days.

23. The chief obstacle to the employment of steam, in long voyages, arises from the difficulty of generating a sufficient quant.i.ty of this agent, with the fuel which could be carried without overburdening the vessel; but a remedy for this inconvenience will probably be found, in improvements in the construction of steam-generators.

24. The power of confined steam acting by its expansive force, was discovered by the celebrated Marquis of Worcester, about the middle of the seventeenth century; but the first working steam-engine was constructed in 1705, by Thomas Newcomen, a blacksmith of Dartmouth, Devons.h.i.+re, England. About the year 1769, James Watt, a native of Glasgow, added a great number of improvements of his own invention.

25. Steam navigation was first suggested in England, in 1736, by Jonathan Hulls. It was first tried in practice in France, in 1782, by the Marquis de Jouffroy, and nearly at the same time by James Rumsey, of Virginia, and John Fitch, of Philadelphia; but it was first rendered completely successful at New-York, in 1807, by Robert Fulton.

26. The sailors employed by the captain, to aid him in navigating his s.h.i.+p, are called a _crew_; and the individuals composing it are responsible to the captain, the captain to the owners, and the owners to the merchants, for all damages to goods, arising from negligence or bad management.

27. In England, ample provisions are made at Greenwich Hospital or by pensions, for seamen disabled by age or otherwise. These benefits, however, are extended only to those who have been engaged in the national service. This n.o.ble and politic inst.i.tution is supported partly by public bounty, and in part by private donations, and a tax of sixpence per month, deducted from the wages of all the seamen of the nation. Marine Hospitals, for the temporary accommodation of seamen, suffering from disease, have been established in several cities of the continent of Europe, as well as of the United States.

28. Mariners have ever been a distinct cla.s.s of men, and, in their general characters, very similar in every age of the world. Their superst.i.tious regard of the many signs of good and bad luck, is nearly the same now, that it was two or three thousand years ago. In ancient times, they had their lucky and unlucky days; and now, very few sailors are willing to leave port on Friday, lest the circ.u.mstance bring upon them some disaster, before the conclusion of the proposed voyage.

29. Superst.i.tions of this nature, however, are not confined to the navigators of the deep. Even in this country, where the inhabitants enjoy superior intellectual advantages, and boast a high degree of intelligence, thousands of persons who have never been on board of a s.h.i.+p, are still under the influence of such heathen notions, notwithstanding their pretended belief in Christianity, which, in all cases, when properly understood, would prevent the forebodings of evil, or expectations of good, from unimportant prognostics.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERCHANT.]

THE MERCHANT.

1. The word _merchant_, in its most extended application, signifies, a person who deals in merchandise. This definition, with some exceptions, agrees very well with general usage in this country; although, in England, the term is princ.i.p.ally restricted to those dealers who export and import goods on their own account, either in their own or in chartered vessels. In the United States, dealers of this cla.s.s are denominated _importing_ and _exporting_ merchants; or simply, _importers_ and _exporters_.

2. Such merchants, both here and in Europe, are distinguished from each other by the kind of goods in which they traffic, or by the foreign country in which they have their chief correspondence; thus, one who deals in tobacco is called a tobacco-merchant; a wholesale dealer in wines is called a wine-merchant; a West India, East India, or Turkey merchant, exports goods to, and imports goods from, those respective countries.

3. The business of merchants, in foreign countries, is usually transacted by agents, called factors, or commission merchants, to whom goods are consigned to be sold, and by whom other articles of merchandise are purchased and returned according to order. Sometimes an agent, called a supercargo, accompanies the vessel; or the captain may act in this capacity. Goods, however, are often obtained by order, without the intervention of an agency of any kind.

4. Almost every sort of foreign merchandise is subject to the imposition of duties by the government of the country in which it is received. These duties are paid at the _Custom-House_, to persons appointed by the const.i.tuted authorities to collect them. As soon as a vessel from abroad has entered the harbor, it is visited by a custom-house officer, called a _Tide-Waiter_, whose business it is to see that no part of the cargo is removed, until measures have been taken to secure the customs.

5. Goods brought into the country by importers, are frequently sold, in succession, to several merchants of different grades, before they come to the hands of the consumers. Cloths or stuffs of different kinds, for instance, may be first sold by the bale to one merchant, who, in turn, may dispose of them by the package to another, and this last may retail them in small quant.i.ties to a greater number of customers.

6. Dealers in a small way, in cities and large towns, are frequently denominated shop-keepers; but those who do an extensive retail business, are usually called merchants or grocers, according as they deal in dry goods or groceries. In cities, the extensive demand for goods enables retailers to confine their attention to particular cla.s.ses of articles; such as groceries, hardware, crockery, a few kinds of dry goods, or some articles of domestic manufacture; but in other places, where trade is more limited, the merchant is obliged to keep a more general a.s.sortment.

7. The general retail merchant is compelled to transact business with a great number of wholesale dealers, to whom he pays cash in hand, or agrees to pay it at some future period, say, in four, six, nine, or twelve months. The people in his vicinity, in turn, purchase his goods on similar conditions, with this difference, that they often subst.i.tute for cash agricultural and other productions, which the merchant, at length, turns into ready money.

8. Barter, or the exchange of commodities, prevails to a great extent, in country places, in almost every part of the United States. In such exchanges, the currency of the country is made the standard of reference: for example; a merchant receiving from a customer twenty bushels of wheat, estimated at one dollar per bushel, gives in return twenty dollars' worth of goods, at his marked prices; or, in other words, he gives credit for the wheat, and charges the goods. On the same principle, merchants of the first cla.s.s often exchange the productions of their own country for those of another.

9. Merchants, or store-keepers, as they are indifferently called in some places, whose location is distant from the seaboard, visit the city in which they deal once or twice a year, for the purpose of laying in their stock of goods; but, in order to keep up their a.s.sortment, they sometimes order small lots in the interim. Retailers more conveniently situated, purchase a smaller amount of goods at a time, and replenish their stores more frequently.

10. Commerce, on the principles of barter, or a simple exchange of one commodity for another, must have been practised in the early days of Adam himself; although we have no positive record of the fact; for it cannot be imagined that the arts, which are stated in the Scripture to have flourished long before the flood, could have existed without commercial transactions. The period at which the precious metals began to be employed as a standard of value, or as a medium of commercial intercourse, is not known. They were used for this purpose in the time of Abraham, and probably many centuries before his day.

11. The earliest hint respecting the existence of trade between different nations, is to be found in the book of Genesis, where the transaction regarding the sale of Joseph to the Ishmaelites, or Midianites, is mentioned. These merchants, it appears, were travelling in a caravan to Egypt, then the most cultivated and refined part of the world. Their camels were loaded with balm, myrrh, and spices. The first of these articles was the production of Gilead; the second, of Arabia; and the last was probably from India; as in that country the finer spices are produced. If this were really the case, commerce, in its widest sense, was carried on much earlier than is generally supposed.

12. The fertility of Egypt, and its central position, made it an emporium of commerce; and there it flourished, in an eminent degree, long before it was cultivated in Europe and in Western Asia. For several ages, however, the Egyptians, on account of their superst.i.tious prejudices against the sea, carried on no maritime commerce.

13. The Phoenicians were the first people who used the Mediterranean Sea, as a highway for the transportation of merchandise. Tyre and Sidon were their chief cities; and the latter was called a _great_, and the former a _strong_ city, even in the time of Joshua, fifteen hundred years before the advent of Christ. These people, in their original a.s.sociation as a nation, possessed but a small territory; and, being surrounded by many powerful nations, they never attempted its enlargement on the land side.

14. The settlement of the Israelites in the "Promised Land,"

circ.u.mscribed their limits to a very small territory, and compelled them to colonize a great number of their inhabitants. The colonies which they formed in the various countries bordering upon the Mediterranean and on the islands, enlarged the boundaries of civilization, and greatly extended their trade.

15. The Phoenicians continued their colonial system for many centuries after the period just mentioned, and even extended it to the Atlantic coasts of Europe. But the most distinguished of all their colonies was the one which founded the city of Carthage, on the northern coast of Africa, about the year 869 before Christ. Elissa, or, as she is otherwise called, Dido, the reputed leader of this colony, makes a conspicuous figure in one of the books of Virgil's aeneid.

16. Carthage, adopting the same system which had so long been pursued by the great cities of Phoenicia, rose, in a few centuries, to wealth and splendor. But, changing, at length, her mercantile for a military character, she ruled her dependent colonies with a rod of despotism.

This produced a spirit of resistance on the part of her distant subjects, who applied to Rome for aid to resist her tyranny. The consequence of this application was the three "Punic wars," so renowned in history, and which terminated in the destruction of Carthage, in the year 146 before the Christian era. During the first Punic war, Carthage contained seven hundred thousand inhabitants; but at its destruction, scarcely five thousand were found within its walls.

17. The period of the greatest prosperity of Tyre, may be placed 588 years before Christ, at which time the remarkable prophecies of Ezekiel concerning it were delivered. Soon after this, it was greatly injured by Nebuchadnezzar; and was finally destroyed by Alexander the Great, about the year 332 before Christ.

18. A new channel was opened to commerce by the monarch just mentioned, he having founded a city in Egypt, to which he gave the name of Alexandria. His object seems to have been, to render this city the centre of the commercial world; and its commanding position, at the mouth of the Nile, was well calculated to make it so; since it was easy of access from the west by the Mediterranean, from the east by the Red Sea, and from the central countries of Asia by the Isthmus of Suez.

19. The plans of Alexander were carried out with vigor by Ptolemy, who received Egypt as his portion of the Macedonian empire, after the death of his master; and, by his liberality, he induced great numbers of people to settle in the new metropolis for the purposes of trade.