and the nature of others; to instance the sagacity of the beaver and his raft, and the little nautilus with his swelling sail: hence they might have adopted from that animal, and that piscatory insect, the idea of a raft, and also of a vessel with a sail. In latter days we find the Teutonic Saxons first came to this country, according to Mr. Turner, the Anglo-Saxon historian, in vessels they called _cyules-kells_ by Sir Walter Raleigh. Marine vessels have borne a variety of names, as well as of numerous figures, from the gondola of the Venetian to the canoe of the Esquimaux,--the British man-of-war to the ponderous bonaventure in which the Doge annually espouses the sea. All those nations, too, through whose hands the maritime power has passed, from time to time, as they have been instructed by experience, or taught by necessity, might repeatedly have made additions and improvements in naval architecture: some calculated for mercantile utility, while others have only attended to warlike strength, and some to answer both purposes, like our Indiamen. But now, the British navy, being supplied with the best materials, and having as ingenious workmen as any, with the addition of the warlike children of the soil, may openly defy all nations, and proudly claim the sovereignty of the seas where her flag has been flying ’midst the battle and the breeze for so many years. But the most important improvement in Navigation--propelling vessels by steam--has been left to our own times. The steam-engine was first applied to small vessels for the coasting or river trade; but it has now increased to vessels of the largest size,--in fact, the most part of the British navy are steamships. In former times before the introduction of this valuable auxiliary, the passage between England and America was tedious and uncertain, sometimes taking months, but rarely less than from four to six weeks, according to the state of the weather; but now the case is altered. There are a regular line of steamships, one of which leaves Liverpool every week, and the voyage is performed with almost positive certainty in from twelve to fourteen days, independent of the rude Boreas, or the boisterous Atlantic. These vessels are of the largest size and handsomely fitted up for the accommodation of passengers. LIGHT-HOUSES. A light-house, in marine architecture, is a building, or watch-tower, erected on the sea-shore, to serve as a land-mark to mariners, on a low coast, by day, and, in any situation, to inform them of their approach to land in the night;--being of most essential utility in causing them to take soundings, avoid shoals, rocks, &c.; or else it is a building erected on a rock in the sea, which, from its situation, would be extremely dangerous to vessels, were not some intimation given of the existence of a rock, where it is locally situated. Of this latter description is the celebrated Eddystone light-house, off Plymouth.