It is impossible to say who first taught man to float upon a log or an inflated skin, or who had the genius to construct the earliest raft. The exclusive honour of the discovery of navigation—which now, through the successive improvements of many ages, and the application of steam as a motive power, has arrived at its present high state of development, tending to the safety, convenience, and civilization of mankind—is too great an honour to be awarded to any single individual. Indeed it is a glory which writers alike in ancient and in modern times have declined to confer on any frail mortal like themselves. Accordingly the Libyans and the Greeks ascribed the merit of the invention to the gods. Neptune, however little in other respects may be known of this mythological personage, was not only worshipped by the ancients as the first inventor of navigation and supreme ruler of the sea, but his glory has survived the wreck of empires and the extinction of races, and the name of a heathen god is still associated with the dominion of the ocean. There is, however, no difficulty in conceiving what would give the first idea of flotation. At the period of the earliest history of man acknowledged by Christian nations, our first parents must have noticed leaves or branches of trees floating in the river “which went out of Eden to water the garden.” Thus would be conceived at the creation of man the idea of a vessel or of a substance which would float and could be made useful for his wants.[1] The buoyancy of the branch or trunk of a tree would suggest the means of carrying him across unfordable rivers; and there is no doubt that, long anterior to the era assigned to Noah, the first step in the art of ship-building was taken in hollowing out the log by fire, or by some rude instrument, in order to render more secure the position of any adventurous navigator. A pole or paddle might be used to propel the rude barque, but probably ages passed away without any improvement in this respect. In fact, to this day, some of the inhabitants of the Polynesian Islands have not made any greater progress in the construction of their primitive vessels; and the canoes in the Pacific, and in various parts of South America, are still formed on what is evidently the most ancient model of vessels. While the hollow log was made to answer the purpose of a boat, a number of logs placed together would suggest the idea of a raft, for the carrying of a number of persons or animals, or of any article of greater weight than could be conveyed in a canoe across a lake or river. These, by degrees, would be improved in form, in strength, or in capacity, to suit the wants of man or the navigation for which they were intended. The ingenuity of even the rudest savages would lead them, it may be easily supposed, in course of time, to construct their raft so as to make it more easy of propulsion, and thus give to it the first form of a ship. [Sidenote: The Ark.]