losses already incurred; and perhaps the example of Parliamentary aid in this particular case, may tend to excite very unreasonable expectations regarding the future.

In a former instance it is apprehended, that a part of the circulating medium withheld from common use, was drawn forth, by the incontestable securities placed in the hands of those to whom Exchequer Bills were advanced; and by the premium, beyond legal interest, which they were thus enabled to give.-No one conceives the present medium of circulation as deficient in amount; and should these loans from Government induce an increased issue of Notes by the Bank of England, or in any way support an enlarged quantity of Country Notes, the depreciation of paper currency must continue to augment.

A measure thus circumstanced, clearly beneficial in the first instance, to thousands suffering from actual want of employ, and of which the ultimate effects may also, by possibility, be good, could not receive any serious opposition in Parliament. The policy, however, of originating the measure, seems at least to admit of doubt.

ON

PROPELLING VESSELS,

&c. &c.

It is but reasonable to conclude, that the honor of inventing steam. boats (now no less a subject of controversy between individuals than nations) will soon cease to occupy the attention of mankind; for since experience proves their inutility, except to a very limited extent, reason very naturally rejects their adoption. Nor is it to be wondered at; for, whilst the expansibility of steam renders it a powerful agent, it makes it, at the same time, a very dangerous auxiliary to the wants of man.'

But it is not the insecurity alone, attendant on its operations, which lessens the importance of steam, as a propeller of floating bodies;-many causes combine to render it either inefficient or impracticable. The fuel which would be required for a vessel of any considerable burden, to perform a moderate voyage even, would leave but little space for freightage! However extraordinary this may appear, it is, nevertheless, indisputable; to prove which, I will instance a boat of 80 tons (said to be the most perfect of its kind) which navigates the Clyde, propelled by an engine of 14 horse power, and which consumes 14 cwt. of coals per hour! The quantity, therefore, which would necessarily be required for a ship to perform, as stated, a moderate voyage only, is almost incalculable-particularly as the increase of velocity is not in proportion to the increase of the power of the steam engine; for the resistance, to which a boat is subject, increases not in an arithmetical proportion, but in proportion to the squares of velocity ;-in other words, to make the same vessel move with ten times a given velocity, it requires an hundred times the power.

1 See the Minutes of the Evidence respecting Steam-boats, before a select Committee of the House of Commons, in 1817.

2 See Rees's Encycl. Art. Steam-boat.

Again, it is known how ungovernable a steam vessel is, when any part of the machinery chances to be deranged; when therefore its complication is considered, and the vessel's dependence upon that power alone, the danger of navigating oceans like the Atlantic or Pacific, becomes multiplied in a ratio, equal to the distances of the ports of departure or destination. In fact, numberless causes may occur to retard a vessel's progress so propelled; so that steam, in this instance, can derive but little value from the circumstance of its being independent of the operations of winds and tides.

Indeed, the propulsion of ships of any considerable magnitude by that power, to answer a profitable purpose, seems no longer tenable, even upon paper; and, however theoretically ingenious, we can only lament, that it is not more practically useful.

The object of the present address is, to suggest the employment of Windmill Sails, as substitutes for steam, in giving motion to the paddles :-by this means a power, at least equal to that of steam, may be obtained; and, as those sails are, at all times, capable of being turned to the wind, to receive its impulse, the advantages of sailing against wind and tide will be retained the cost of machinery very considerably lessened the expenditure and incon veniences of fuel saved-and the danger, in comparison with steam, rendered as nought.

Of the practicability of the measure, I conceive it only necessary for a person (however ignorant he may be of the mechanical power of the lever) to witness the sails of a windmill in motion, to be convinced; but an accession of force would be obtained by the employment of this power to the purposes of navigation, which, if I am not mistaken, is now in physics;-I mean the excess of velocity which would be acquired by progression-thus constituting power multiplied by power; for, no sooner would the vis inertia of the body to be propelled be overcome, than the sails, I apprehend, would derive an additional impetus from the vessel's velocity.

Whether or not this hypothesis be founded on a just datum, I am not prepared to dispute, nor is it necessary to my purpose to prove an acceleration of motion; for, as the sails of a windmill move with a velocity nearly equal to the squares of the velocity of the wind, a maximum of effect may be produced equal to the end proposed.

To pursue the subject of the address-and which I shall do more by reference to a power familiar to all, than by any mathematical demonstration of mere speculative opinion-I assume (and it is not too much) that one set of common windmill sails is equal to a steam engine of 20 horse power-consequently is capable of propelling a vessel of 120 tons (as that power has been found to