INTRODUCTION. WITHIN the last few years, Naval Architecture has obtained, among the unprofessional members of society, a greater amount of interest than used formerly to be bestowed upon it. The rivalry which exists between the merchant navies of Great Britain, and her offspring in the Western World, has made each party seek, in the quality of their ships, that advantage which they could not obtain in the market. And the competition of the steam companies on the two shores of the Atlantic has given an impulse to research, also, in that department of science. It is but a short time since the clipper builders of England have been taught that the science of ship-building has not progressed with the rapidity which it has attained in America, nor B |