The first of these was built at the mouth of the
Kennebec River in Maine. This was a staunch little two-
masted vessel, which was named the Virginia, supposed to
have been about sixty feet long and seventeen feet in beam.
Next in time came the Restless, built in 1614 or 1615 at
New York, by Adrian Blok, a Dutch captain whose ships
had been burned while lying at Manhattan Island. This
vessel, thirty-eight feet long and of eleven feet beam, was
employed for several years in exploring the Atlantic coast.
With the advent of the nineteenth century a new ideal in
naval architecture arose, that of the ship moved by steam-
power instead of wind-power, and fitted to combat with the
seas alike in storm and calm, with little heed as to whether
the wind was fair or foul. The steamship appeared, and grew
in size and power until such giants of the wave as the Titanic
and Olympic were set afloat. To the development of this
modern class of ships our attention must now be turned.
As the reckless cowboy of the West is fast becoming a thing
of the past, so is the daring seaman of fame and story. In his
place is coming a class of men miscalled sailors, who never
reefed a sail or coiled a cable, who do not know how to launch
a life-boat or pull an oar, and in whose career we meet the
ridiculous episode of the life-boats of the Titanic, where women
were obliged to take the oars from their hands and row the
boats.
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