But the galleasse, though it might meet the requirements of Mediterranean warfare, was almost as unsuited as the galley to Atlantic conditions. Accordingly the warship underwent a separate and independent development at the hands of the Atlantic nations. Forsaking the galley, they took the lofty, strong and capacious sailing merchant ship as the basis of a new type, and from the lumbering carrack and caravel and dromon they evolved the vessel which eventually became known as the _galleon_. A distinctive naval architecture, Gothic rather than Byzantine in character, was thus founded on the Atlantic seaboard. The oar was entirely superseded by the sail. The ships were high, and their sides, instead of falling out like those of galleys, were curved inwards so as to “tumble home” above the water-line: an arrangement which protected the ordnance, added to the strength of the vessels, and tended to render them steadier gun-platforms. The top-castles were retained on the masts, but the end-castles disappeared, or rather, were incorporated into the structure of the lofty bow and stern, to provide accommodation for officers, and cover for the crew. The _voile latine_ gave way to the _voile quarrée_. In place of the large lateen sails carried by galley and galleasse, were smaller sails and courses, square, more easily manipulated and allowing of greater variation in disposition and effective area, to suit the conditions of weather and the trim of the ship. Throughout the fifteenth century the sailing ship developed. “While in the first quarter,” writes Mr. Oppenheim of English shipping, “we find that men-of-war possess, at the most, two masts and two sails, carry three or four guns, and one or two rudimentary bowsprits, at the close of the same century they are three- or four-masters, with topmasts and topsails, bowsprit and spritsail, and conforming to the characteristics of the type which remained generally constant for more than two centuries.” The English mariner had by this time acquired his honourable reputation. In merchant ships he carried Bordeaux wine, the casks of which became the unit for measurement of their tunnage; even in winter months, we are told, he braved the Bay with pilgrims on tour to the shrine of St. James of Compostella. Large royal ships of over 1000 tons burthen were built, in the early part of the century, in English yards. As builders the Normans seem at this time to have excelled.[2] But the most wonderful development of the science of seamanship in all its branches took place in the Peninsula. Largely through the inspiration of one man the greatest efforts of Spain and Portugal were directed to the cult of navigation and geography, the improvement of shipbuilding, and the discovery of new and distant lands and oceans. A brilliant impetus was given to the study of ship construction by the voyages of Columbus, the Cabots, Vasco di Gama, and other intrepid spirits who, by aid of the compass, braved the moral and