his efforts to improve navigation, adventurer. He accordingly determined to meet the enemies of England on the sea, and having studied the best models of the Danes, and added many improvements of his own, his efforts were in the end completely successful. His galleys are said to have been twice as long as those of the enemy, and to have carried sixty oars. They were also loftier and better built, and proved of much greater speed.[1]
and to extend the knowledge of geography. Alfred, who, by the attention he devoted to maritime pursuits, has justly earned the title of the "Father of the British Navy," was also the first native of Britain who made an attempt to extend the science of geography. Having obtained information from Ohthere, a Norwegian,[2] and from other sources, of the Baltic Sea and adjacent countries stretching to the extreme northern regions of Europe, he corrected many of the prevailing errors of geographers. Ohthere, who had coasted along the country of the Fins, now known as Lapland, and had passed the North Cape and penetrated into the bay where Archangel now stands, speaks of the vast abundance of whales and seals along that northern coast, and gives a description of the mode of life of the natives, which is not unlike that of the ancient Scythians. They brewed no ale; mead was the ordinary drink of the poorer classes; while the rich drank a species of liquor prepared from the milk of goats.
But though Alfred was successful in raising, after four years' labour, six small vessels, with which he put to sea and overcame seven of the Danish ships,
