As Navigation Extended Itself, And Became
More Frequent, They Perfected The Construction Of Ships, And Made Them Of A
Much Larger Capacity.
They were not long in discovering the use that might
be drawn from the wind, to hasten and facilitate
The course of a ship, and
they found out the art of aiding it by means of masts and sails." Such is
the account given by Goguet; but it is evident that this is entirely
conjectural history: and we may remark, by the bye, that a work otherwise
highly distinguished by clear and philosophical views, and enriched by
considerable learning and research, in many places descends to fanciful
conjecture.
All that we certainly know respecting the ships of the Phoenicians, is,
that they had two kinds; one for the purposes of commerce, and the other
for naval expeditions; and in this respect they were imitated by all the
other nations of antiquity. Their merchant-ships were called Gauloi.
According to Festus's definition of this term, the gauloi were nearly
round; but it is evident that this term must be taken with considerable
restriction; a vessel round, or nearly so, could not possibly be navigated.
It is most probable that this description refers entirely to the shape of
the bottom or hold of the vessel; and that merchant ships were built in
this manner, in order that they might carry more goods; whereas the ships
for warfare were sharp in the bottom. Of other particulars respecting the
construction and equipment of the ships of the Phoenicians, we are
ignorant: they probably resembled in most things those of Greece and Rome;
and these, of which antient historians speak more fully, will be described
afterwards.
The Phoenicians naturally paid attention to astronomy, so far at least as
might be serviceable to them in their navigation; and while other nations
were applying it merely to the purposes of agriculture and chronology, by
means of it they were guided through the "trackless ocean," in their
maritime enterprises. The Great Bear seems to have been known and used as a
guide by navigators, even before the Phoenicians were celebrated as a
sea-faring people; but this constellation affords a very imperfect and
uncertain rule for the direction of a ship's course: the extreme stars that
compose it are more than forty degrees distant from the pole, and even its
centre star is not sufficiently near it. The Phoenicians, experiencing the
imperfection of this guide, seem first to have discovered, or at least to
have applied to maritime purposes, the constellation of the Lesser Bear.
But it is probable, that at the period when they first applied this
constellation, which is supposed to be about 1250 years before Christ, they
did not fix on the star at the extremity of the tail of Ursa Minor, which
is what we call the Pole Star; for by a Memoir of the Academy of Sciences
(1733. p. 440.) it is shewn, that it would at that period be too distant to
serve the purpose of guiding their track.[3]
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