the work is not likely to find its way into many hands in this country, we shall make free to extract a few passages from such parts of it as we think likely to be most interesting to our readers. This will at the same time make them somewhat acquainted with a writer who bids fair, for many years, to occupy a large place amongst the engineers of France.

The following is taken from his observations on the general tendency of improvements in the art of war to render battles less sanguinary. "When gunpowder was first applied to combats, the friends of humanity were alarmed with the idea that we had acquired a means of destruction so powerful. That invention had immensely increased the distance from whence man could send destruction to his fellow creatures: all seemed to presage, that, by a force so fatal, wars must, in future, become an indiscriminate butchery, which, leaving nothing to genius or valour, would lead mankind to an age of barbarism.

"But effects altogether opposite have dissipated forever these chimerical fears. For since our means of destruction have enabled us to combat at greater distances, the result has been, in both sea and land fights, that the fields of battle have been enlarged. The lines of combatants, instead of charging hand to hand, attack each other from a distance. Combinations, founded on the nature of localities and on the diversity of arms, have acquired the greatest importance. The entire surface of the greatest countries has become as it were a single field of simultaneous operations: generals have taken advantage of all their essential characters in distributing their new means of attack and defence. The combinations, and enlargement of the theatre of action, have been extended to fleets as well as armies; and we now but rarely witness those close charges, by which, formerly, innumerable barbarians rushed upon the lines of regular armies which could not repulse them from a distance, thus rendering useless the superiority of art, and deciding by the quantity of blood the fate of the battle.

"Following this humane but erroneous opinion, that those arms which are most efficient for destruction are most fatal to mankind, we have seen sovereigns refusing to employ certain inventions which appeared to them too murderous. were in the wrong.

They

"When governments have recourse to the terrible means of war, that is, when they prefer the destruction of men to the continuance of an order of things which appears to them insupportable, whatever mode of warfare they may adopt, they

will employ it until one party is wholly overthrown, or until both parties have received a chastisement proportional to the strength of their passions. But when destruction comes upon them slowly and gradually, and mingled with some successes, the disasters of yesterday are forgotten in the present triumph, and as there is no great catastrophy, neither of the parties is" struck with the necessity of demanding peace. Time habit

uates people to a state of war, and the quarrels of nations thus become interminable. This state of things, therefore, costs more sacrifices from humanity than a small number of general and vigorous actions which, in a few months, decide the fate of the two nations.

"Let us not, therefore, lay aside as too destructive any improvements in the means of making war, since their employment will, on the whole, diminish the quantity of blood spilt in the quarrels of nations."

Of the particular improvements in naval architecture Dupin speaks very favourably of the circular sterns,* and the improvements of Sir R. Seppings generally, by which ships are made lighter and at the same time stronger. He admires the severe architecture, which, wasting nothing in mere ornament, looks only to the force and durability of the vessel and the health and convenience of the crew. The encouragement given by the British government to improvement, is brought into strong contrast with the niggardliness of the French, in the cases of Sir R. Seppings and the engineer Hubert, who constructed some important works at the naval post of Rochefort. The former, for his improvements in the construction of vessels, was recompensed with 100,000 francs and a considerable life pension; while the latter received from the French ministry no more than 600 francs, and this, according to Dupin, is the only instance of a reward being given to an engineer during the Imperial government.

The introduction of machinery for facilitating labour of every kind, at the arsenals, has been very general. Dupin notices particularly, the application of the steam engine to the fabrication of cordage, anchors, blocks, and the sawing of stuff.

The advantages of machinery are always in some degree proportional to the extent to which it is established. Yet Dupin says, "The English officers at the arsenals are not in favour of very extensive establishments. They say the superintendance of them is too difficult. When they are obliged

* See this Journal, vol. 1. pp. 18 and 554.

to go several times a day from one extremity to the other of these vast establishments, they lose a great deal of time, and exhaust themselves by merely passing from place to place. I replied to this objection, that the principal officers might have horses and boats, and I still believe that a small number of extensive arsenals, completely furnished, and directed by men of superior talents and great experience, having at command all the means of facilitating labour, are worth infinitely more than numerous second rate establishments, the perplexed concerns of which have no relation to the general direction of the service.

"In each of these disseminated establishments, there is but little knowledge and little emulation, and to conclude, we can never introduce an extensive division of labour, nor take the benefit of those powerful but costly machines, which can be employed with great advantage only in places where, whether public or private, industry is developed on the great scale."

The English have long been celebrated for their fine dry docks for building and repairing vessels; Dupin furnishes a description of these at several naval depots. The expediency of building dry docks, in this country, has always been questioned, and as the necessity of having some mode of taking vessels out of water for repairs has increased with the enlargement of the navy, rail ways, on an inclined plane, have been proposed and partially adopted as superior to docks. The principal objections to dry docks are, their cost, and the necessity, from the small rise of our tides, for pumping. These objections have been greatly overrated. The expense of docks is not so great as is generally imagined; we strong ly doubt whether, at the outset, they would be found much more costly than inclined planes: as to the objection, that they require pumping, it is exceedingly trifling, the quantity of labour to pump them, even by hand, would hardly exceed the labour of hauling a vessel out of water, with the best machinery that could be contrived. But have we not horses? Have we not wind? Will not the steam engine be used before long at every considerable navy yard, for sawing and other purposes, by which the docks may be freed from water with the greatest facility? But the strong ground in favour of docks is their comparative durability. In this they equal any other permanent architectural work. The gates and pumps constitute their only moveable parts; while the inclined plane is a machine throughout; requiring great accuracy, which must be preserved although the plane is loaded with enormous

weight, and although motion must be communicated to certain parts of it, under the disadvantages of this condition. Whatever experiments may be made with inclined rail ways, of any kind, as a general substitute for docks; we venture to predict that they will end like the proposed substitution of the same instruments for canal locks,-in the discovery that they are na improvement.

Dupin has investigated at considerable length the comparative advantages of different kinds of cannon and various other implements of war, and he admires the perfection with which they are wrought. None of the minor improvements, however, appear to strike him more favourably, than the general introduction of iron tanks in the equipment of ships, in place of the common wooden water casks. The idea of using vessels of iron for this purpose, suggested itself to General Bentham as long ago as 1798, and he tried the experiment, covering however the iron tank with wood, which answered very well. Since that time, Dickenson and Maudslay have improved them: and they now make them without any wooden covering. Their form is a perfect cube, by which a great deal of room is saved in stowage; the largest measure four feet on each side; and the smallest kind measure three feet; there is one intermediate size. So highly have they been approved by the admiralty, that soon after the peace, the manufacturers received an order from the government for seven thousand; to hold nearly two tons of water each. Du pin strongly urges the use of them, not only for water, but for wines and spirits; bread and the various vegetables; observing, that as these provisions would in this way be kept from the action of the air, we may be assured of their preservation for an almost indefinite period. We believe that this invention has not yet been adopted in the American Navy.

The author has prefixed to the treatise on the commercial power of England, which makes the third part of his work, some general views of the rise and present state of the arts connected with commercial industry, in that country and in France, well calculated to arouse the attention of his countrymen, both by the soundness of his observations, and the glowing style in which they are conveyed. It is very true that fine writing, or declamation, about such every day concerns as the useful arts, is always to be considered as a little suspicious; since it seldom happens that a man goes to the bottom of such uncomely affairs, without leaving most of his graces behind him. M. Dupin, however, shows so much knowledge throughout his book, that, to apply to him the saying of a wit on another occasion,-he can afford to declaim.

Dupin considers the unequal division of property, however it may affect the condition of the people otherwise, as advantageous to the advancement of public works, and in the heartiness of his commendations he seems, momentarily, to forget that he is a liberale.

"The great families of England," he says, "have descended into the ranks of industry to acquire new titles of popularity and esteem. Thus they have produced works of general utility which would surpass the means of a private fortune. If you go over the country and the coasts of Great Britain, you discover every where the monuments of this magnanimous spirit. Would you know who created this canal, which carries life and activity through the neighbourhood and into the heart of a great manufacturing city? It was a duke of Bridgewater who conceived and fully executed this fine enterprise. Who created this rail way, which conducts for ten miles the products of a mine, and the travellers of a country, to an artificial port on the borders of a sea, and what powerful Society constructed the docks, the basins, the moles, and the edifices of this port? It was a duke of Portland, who singly was able to effect this vast work.

"If you travel over the cities of Great Britain, you find at every step, monuments of public utility elevated by the unaided munificence of opulent and generous private persons. A simple merchant built the Royal Exchange of London. A knight, constructed at his expense, the great aqueduct of the new river. A Cavendish, and a Bedford have formed on their own lands, in the metropolis, squares, as large and regular as the largest places and streets of Paris."

Impressed with the superiority of the arts of industry in England, at the present time; Dupin finds an evident relief in recurring to the periods when France held a comparatively superior rank. The following from his sketch of the introduction of canals into Europe, betrays in some degree this feeling. "The middle age was yet uncivilized, when Charlemagne conceived the project of opening a canal between the neighboring sources of the Danube and the Rhine, thus to unite the Euxine to the Ocean and the north of Europe to the west of Asia. Henry IV. is the first, amongst the moderns, who passed beyond the mere contemplation, and attempted the execution of uniting by a canal, two basins separated by a chain of mountains. With the same genius with which he meditated the alliance of princes for the happiness of nations; he meditated the alliance of seas for the prosperity of continents. But his assassination stopped the course of his projects, which