thing, in short, that belongs to a factory, is attributed to their invention.[2] With respect to their vessels,—­ “Originally they had only rafts, or simple boats; they used oars to conduct these weak and light vessels.  As navigation extended itself, and became more frequent, they perfected the construction of ships, and made them of a much larger capacity.  They were not long in discovering the use that might be drawn from the wind, to hasten and facilitate the course of a ship, and they found out the art of aiding it by means of masts and sails.”  Such is the account given by Goguet; but it is evident that this is entirely conjectural history:  and we may remark, by the bye, that a work otherwise highly distinguished by clear and philosophical views, and enriched by considerable learning and research, in many places descends to fanciful conjecture.

All that we certainly know respecting the ships of the Phoenicians, is, that they had two kinds; one for the purposes of commerce, and the other for naval expeditions; and in this respect they were imitated by all the other nations of antiquity.  Their merchant-ships were called Gauloi.  According to Festus’s definition of this term, the gauloi were nearly round; but it is evident that this term must be taken with considerable restriction; a vessel round, or nearly so, could not possibly be navigated.  It is most probable that this description refers entirely to the shape of the bottom or hold of the vessel; and that merchant ships were built in this manner, in order that they might carry more goods; whereas the ships for warfare were sharp in the bottom.  Of other particulars respecting the construction and equipment of the ships of the Phoenicians, we are ignorant:  they probably resembled in most things those of Greece and Rome; and these, of which antient historians speak more fully, will be described afterwards.

The Phoenicians naturally paid attention to astronomy, so far at least as might be serviceable to them in their navigation; and while other nations were applying it merely to the purposes of agriculture and chronology, by means of it they were guided through the “trackless ocean,” in their maritime enterprises.  The Great Bear seems to have been known and used as a guide by navigators, even before the Phoenicians were celebrated as a sea-faring people; but this constellation affords a very imperfect and uncertain rule for the direction of a ship’s course:  the extreme stars that compose it are more than forty degrees distant from the pole, and even its centre star is not sufficiently near it.  The Phoenicians, experiencing the imperfection of this guide, seem first to have discovered, or at least to have applied to maritime purposes, the constellation of the Lesser Bear.  But it is probable, that at the period when they first applied this constellation, which is supposed to be about 1250 years before Christ, they did not fix on the star at the extremity of the tail of Ursa Minor, which is what we call the Pole Star; for by a Memoir of the Academy of Sciences (1733. p. 440.) it is shewn, that it would at that period be too distant to serve the purpose of guiding their track.[3]