The sacred records inform us that the ark of Noah was the first ship, and produced by the invention of the great Architect of Nature himself; and “though some men have so believed,” says the learned and ingenious Sir Walter Raleigh, in his “History of the World,” “yet it is certain the world was planted before the flood, which could not be performed without some transporting vessels. It is true, and the success has proved that there was not any so capacious, nor any so strong, as to defend themselves against so violent and so continued a pouring down of rain, as the ark of which Noah was the builder, from the invention of God himself. Of what fashion or fabric soever were the rest, with all men they perished according to the ordinance of God.” And it appears extremely probable that those testimonials, whereof Ovid speaks of former existence, were remains of ships wrecked at the general flood. There can be no question that the Syrians were the first maritime power in the world, as well in point of time as importance;--but of what species of construction their vessels were, we are not informed. Their merchants trading to the Eastern Indies, as they did for Solomon; to Ophir, whence they brought gold; and also to this country for tin, and their having made three distinct descents upon America, will enable us to maintain this our opinion. After them the Greeks, a people living chiefly on the shores of the Hellespont and Ægean seas, with many islands in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and Archipelagion Seas, besides their possessions in Asia Minor, and their commerce with the European Continent, obtained the next power by sea. We read indeed, that Minos, the famous Cretan sovereign and legislator, who lived two descents before the Trojan war, sent out shipping to free the Grecian seas of pirates; which shows, as Sir Walter Raleigh ingeniously infers, that there had been trade and war upon the waters before his time also.