It is interesting to see how, year after year, this committee of two persons narrated the result of their unbought and unpaid labours to the Association. In 1838 and 1839, they shewed how a solid moving in the water produced a particular kind of wave; how, at a certain velocity, the solid might ride on the _top_ of the wave, without sinking into the hollow; how, if the external form of a vessel bore a certain resemblance to a section of this wave, the ship would encounter less resistance in the water than any other form; and thus originated the _wave principle_--so much talked of in connection with ship-building. A ship built on that principle in that year (1839) was believed to be the fastest ship in Britain. In 1840, the committee stated that they had 'consulted the most eminent ship-builders as to the points upon which they most wanted information, and requested them to point out what were the forms of vessel which they would wish to have tried. More than 100 models of vessels of various sizes, from 30 inches to 25 feet in length, were constructed,' and an immense mass of experiments were made on them. In 1841, they described how they had experimented on vessels of every size, from models of 30 inches in length to vessels of 1300 tons. In the next following year, the committee presented a report of no fewer than 20,000 experiments on models and ships, some of which afforded remarkable confirmation of the efficiency of the wave principle in ship-building. Thus the committee went on, year after year, detailing to the Association the results of their experiments, and pointing out how the ship-builders were by degrees giving practical value to these results. Now, a country in which a scientific society will spend a thousand pounds on such an inquiry, and in which scientific men will give up days and weeks of their time to it without fee or reward, _ought_ not to be beaten on the broad seas by any competitor. It affords an instructive confirmation of the results arrived at by the committee, that when some of our swiftest yachts and clippers came to be carefully examined, it was found that the wave principle had been to a great extent adopted in their form, in cases even where the vessels were built before the labours of the committee had commenced. The _art_ had in this case preceded the _science_. And let it not be considered that any absurdity is involved here: farmers manured their fields long before chemists were able to explain the real nature of manuring; and so in other arts, ingenious practical men often discover useful processes before the men of science can give the rationale of those processes.