a small open vessel, conducted on the water by rowing or sailing. The construction, machinery, and even the names of boats, are very different, according to the various purposes for which they are calculated, and the services on which they are to be employed. Thus they are occasionally slight or strong, harp or flat bottomed, open or decked, plain or ornamented; as they may be designed for swiftness or burden, for deep or shallow water, for sailing in a harbour or at sea, and for convenience or pleasure.

The largest boat that usually accompanies a ship is the long-boat, which is generally furnished with a mast and sails; those which are fitted for men of war, may be occasionally decked, armed, and equipped, for cruising. cruising short distances against merchant-ships of the enemy, or smugglers, or for impressing seamen, &c. The barges are next in order, which are longer, lighter, and narrower; they are employed to carry the principal sea-officers, as admirals, and captains of ships of war, and are very unfit for sea. Pinnaces exactly resemble barges, only that they are somewhat smaller, and never row more than eight oars; whereas a barge properly never rows less than ten. These are for the accommodation of the lieutenants, &c. Cutters of a ship, are broader, deeper, and shorter, than the barges and pinnaces; they are fitter for sailing, and are commonly employed in carrying stores, provisions, passengers, &c. to and from the ship. In the structure of this sort of boats, the lower-edge of every plank in the side overlays the upper edge of the plank below, which is called by shipwrights clinch-work. Yaws are something less than cutters, nearly of the same form, and used for similar services; they are generally rowed with six oars.

The above boats more particularly belong to men of war; as merchant-ships seldom have more than two, viz. a long-boat and yawl; when they have a third, it is generally calculated for the countries to which they trade, and varies in its construction accordingly. Merchant-ships employed in the Mediterranean find it more convenient to use a launch, which is longer, more flat-bottomed, and better adapted every way to the harbours of that sea, than a long-boat.

A wherry is a light sharp boat, used in a river or harbour for carrying passengers from place to place. Punts are a sort of oblong flat-bottomed boats, nearly resembling floating stages; they are used by shipwrights and caulkers, for breasting, caulking, or repairing a ship's bottom. A moor is a very flat broad boat, used by merchant-ships amongst the Caribbee islands, to bring hogheads of sugar off from the seashore to the shipping which are anchored in the roads. A felucca is a strong passage-boat used in the Mediterranean, from 10 to 16 banks of oars. The natives of Barbary often employ boats of this sort as cruisers.

For the larger sort of boats, see the articles Craft, Cutter, Periagua, and Shallop.

Of all the small boats, a Norwegian yawl seems to be the best calculated for a high sea, as it will often venture out to a great distance from the coast of that country, when a stout ship can hardly carry any sail.

An account of several trials made on a Boat, or Sloop, fit for inland navigation, coasting voyages, and short passages by sea, which is not, like ordinary vessels, liable to be overflown or sunk by winds, waves, water-spouts, or too heavy a load; contrived and constructed by Monsieur Bernieres, director of the bridges and caulkways in France, &c. &c. Some of these trials were made on the first of August 1777, at the gate of the invalids in Paris, in the presence of the provost of the merchants, of the body of the town, and a numerous concourse of spectators of all conditions.

The experiments were made in the way of comparison with another common boat of the same place, and of equal size. Both boats had been built ten years, and their exterior forms appeared to be exactly similar. The common boat contained only eight men, who rocked it and made it incline so much to one side, that it perfectly filled with water, and sunk; so that the men were obliged to save themselves by swimming; a thing common in all vessels of the same kind, either from the imprudence of those who are in them, the strength of the waves or wind, a violent or unexpected shock, their being overloaded, or overpowered in any other way.

The same men who had just escaped from the boat which sunk, got into the boat of M. Bernieres; rocked it; and filled it, as they had done the other, with water. But, instead of sinking to the bottom, though brim full, it bore being rowed about the river, loaded as it was with men and water, without any danger to the people in it.

M. Bernieres carried the trial still farther. He ordered a mast to be erected in this same boat, when filled with water; and to the top of the mast had a rope fastened, and drawn till the end of the mast touched the surface of the river, so that the boat was entirely on one side, a position into which neither winds nor waves could bring her; yet, as soon as the men who had hauled her into this situation let go the rope, the boat and mast recovered themselves perfectly in less than the quarter of a second; a convincing proof that the boat could neither be sunk nor overturned, and that it afforded the greatest possible security in every way. These experiments appeared to give the greater pleasure to the public, as the advantages of the discovery are not only of sensible, but of the first importance to mankind.

A boat of the same sort had been tried, October 11th, 1771, at Choisy, before Lewis XV. and his present majesty, then Dauphin, &c. to whom M. Bernieres, as much distinguished by his disinterestedness and his virtues as a citizen, as by his inventive genius, referred for the satisfactory result of the experiments.

In consequence of the above trials, the provost of the merchants, and the corporation of Paris, at their meeting on the 20th of September, gave the Sieur de Bernieres permission to establish his boats on the river Seine, at the port near Pont-Royal; and moreover promised him all the protection and encouragement in their power. And the Sieur de Bernieres, on his side, proposes to supply the public with a certain number of these boats before the end of next year.

The known humanity of the inventor warrants the pleasing belief, that this very capital discovery will neither be unnecessarily concealed, nor illiberally restricted. It is due to mankind; and we doubt not but that its importance will be enhanced by an early, free, and extensive communication.

In Britain especially, where so much business of every kind is transacted on the water, we must more anxiously wish to derive from the ingenuity and benevolence of the Sieur Bernieres, a comfortable resource against the many distressful and dangerous accidents to which we are perpetually exposed.