The sail is not so easily accounted for. An ancient tradition relates that a fisherman and his sweetheart, allured from the shore in the hope of discovering an island, and surprised by a tempest, were in imminent danger of destruction. Their only oar was wrenched from the grasp of the fisherman, and the frail bark was thus left to the mercy of the waves. The maiden raised her white veil to protect herself and her lover from the storm; the wind, inflating this fragile garment, impelled them slowly but surely towards the coast. Their aged sire, the tradition continues, suddenly seized with prophetic inspiration, exclaimed, "The future is unfolded to my view! Art is advancing to perfection! My children, you have discovered a powerful agent in navigation. All nations will cover the ocean with their fleets and wander to distant regions. Men, differing in their manners and separated by seas, will disembark upon peaceful shores, and import thence foreign science, superfluities, and art. Then shall the mariner fearlessly cruise over the immense abyss and discover new lands and unknown seas!" Though we may admire the foresight of this patriarch, we cannot applaud him for choosing a moment so inopportune for exercising his peculiar gift: it would certainly have been more natural to afford some comfort to his weather-beaten children. The legend even goes on to state that he at once fixed a pole in the middle of the canoe, and, attaching to it a piece of cloth, invented the first sail-boat. Mythology assigns a different, though similar, origin to the invention:--Iris, seeking her son in a bark which she impelled by oars, perceived that the wind inflated her garments and gently forced her in the direction in which she was going. No research would bring the investigator to conclusions more satisfactory than these. The fact would still remain, that the first mention in profane history of constructions moving upon the water, is many centuries subsequent to the period in which the idea of building such constructions must be presumed to have been first conceived. It would consequently be idle to devote more space to this subject; and we proceed at once, therefore, to the first of recorded ventures upon the sea. [Illustration: THE DELUGE AND THE ARK.] CHAPTER III. THE FLOOD AND THE BUILDING OF THE ARK--THE ARGUMENTS OF INFIDELITY AGAINST A UNIVERSAL DELUGE--THE MATERIAL OF WHICH THE ARK WAS BUILT--ITS CAPACITY, DIMENSIONS, AND FORM--ITS PROPORTIONS COPIED IN MODERN OCEAN STEAMERS.