an account of how he conducted his trade, or given to posterity a drawing of his ship; nor, indeed, to have recorded anything relating to the great maritime state to which he belonged. Our limited knowledge of Tyre is derived therefore almost exclusively from other sources. If these early navigators had taken one-half the pains to transmit to posterity the sum of their acquired knowledge, practical and historical, which the Egyptians have done, a vast amount of information would have been added to the science of ancient navigation and commerce. Unfortunately, almost every vestige of Phœnicia has been swept away, a significant example that the most extended commerce, enjoyed by a purely trading people, cannot alone save them from eventual insignificance and oblivion.
In concluding these introductory remarks, I may be fairly permitted to indulge the hope that, from the vast stores of knowledge bequeathed to us, we may leave more lasting records of our maritime commerce than either Tyre or Carthage, and that the improved civilization and extensive colonial possessions of Great Britain may render her pre-eminence at sea and her commercial greatness much more enduring than the once celebrated maritime city of the Phœnicians, which has become "a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea," and "a spoil to the nations."
The first attempt to float, It is impossible to say who first taught man to float upon a log or an inflated skin, or who had the
