Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/191

NAVY 183 Italy, or from Africa to Sicily, was a dangerous operation. The ships were provided with but Prow of a Galley. little canvas, and oars were relied upon to pro- pel them sluggishly. The implements for offen- sive warfare were equally inefficient. Bows and arrows, javelins, clumsy ballistas and cata- pults, were the only arms that could be used at a distance. No serious harm could be done to an enemy at sea until the two fighting ships came into actual contact. Thus, there were but two modes of naval fighting possible : to manoeuvre so that the sharp, strong, iron - pointed prow of your own ship should be driven with full force against the enemy's broadside in order to run him down; or else to run on broadside to broadside, fasten the two ships together, and board the enemy at once. After the first Punic minion soon put an end to the possibility of further naval contests in the Mediterranean. In the naval encounters between the Ro- mans and Gauls described by Caesar, the for- mer used galleys and the latter merely sail vessels, from which fact it would seem that in the seas about Great Britain sail vessels only were used at that time. The invasion of Eng- land by the Anglo-Saxons was made in sail vessels. In the time of Alfred galleys were in- troduced, the effect of which was to diminish the length and boldness of voyages, for the gal- leys could not venture out to sea, although they made excellent coast guards. After the Nor- man conquest sail vessels came more into use, and voyages again became bolder. But the real birthplace of our modern navies is the German ocean. About the time when the great mass of the Teutonic tribes of central Europe rose to trample down the decaying Boman Galley. war, which destroyed the naval superiority of the Carthaginians, there is not a single naval engagement in ancient history offering the slightest professional interest, and Roman do- Norman Galley. Roman empire and to regenerate western Eu- rope, the Frisians, Saxons, Angles, Danes, and Northmen began to take to the sea. Their vessels were firm, stout sea boats, with a prom- inent keel and sMrp lines, relying mostly on sails alone, and not afraid to face a gale in the middle of that rough northern sea. It was with this class of vessels that the Northmen un- dertook their roving ex- peditions, extending to Constantinople on the one side and America on the other. The ves- sels in which the North- men made their excur- sions were probably of no very large size, per- haps not exceeding 100 tons in any case, and car- rying one or at the outside two masts, fore- and-aft rigged. For a long time both ship building and navigation appear to have re- mained stationary; during the whole of the