Narratives of two excursions to the ports of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in 1816, 1817, and 1818 : together with a description of the Breakwater at Plymouth, and also of the Caledonian Canal / translated from the French of Charles Dupin ... and illustrated by notes, critical and explanatory, by the translator.
- Dupin, Charles, baron, 1784-1873.
- Date:
- Between 1800 and 1899
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Narratives of two excursions to the ports of England, Scotland, and Ireland, in 1816, 1817, and 1818 : together with a description of the Breakwater at Plymouth, and also of the Caledonian Canal / translated from the French of Charles Dupin ... and illustrated by notes, critical and explanatory, by the translator. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![me the establishment of his telegraphic signals on ship=^ board. The Admiralty-Board gives general orders 5 it presides over promotions, rewards, and punishments; the Lords of the Admiralty are liable to be changed as often as a change occurs in the Ministry. The Navy-Board is charged to direct the execution of the works ordered by the Admiralty, and to provide supplies of stores for the different arsenals, and the equipment of ships, as well as to lay them up in ordinary; in a Word, every thing that belongs to the general superintendence of the civil concerns of the Navy is within its department. The Com¬ missioners of this Board are not changed whenever there is a change of the Ministry. This division, at the same time independent and subordinate, made between art and authority, appears to me a master-piece of the English institutions. The Victualling-Board (which, since the peace only has been united to the Navy-Board,)* * has under its direction every thing that concerns the making of contracts for provisions, and the preparing of supplies of that description for the Navy both at home and abroad. The principal establishment of this depart¬ ment is at Deptford, and from the size of its buildings, it seems to form a town of itself. In time of war, here maybe seen every day biscuit made for twenty-five or thirty thousand men. There Popliafn. It is an invention of great antiquity, and only revived in Europe with the French Revolution. Its signals are more distinguishable tlian either flags, balls, or shutters; they are literal or numerical, and, as worked over the Admiralty, at present, no more than a single letter or number is given in each exhibition, by one or both arms together. The numbers are worked according to those arranged in a vocabulary of appropriate sentences; as the sentence opposite No. 125 may be—Have you any news? This number requires four exhibitions, viz. 1—2—3, and the stop signal, to separate 12 3 from the following number. The number of changes on a two-arm Semaphore are forty-eight, which admits of an infinite variety of alphabets, and the correspondenoe is so arranged that the operators and superintendent officer of the respondent stations are completely ignorant of the message, their business being no more than to repeat the signals seen, exactly, to the next station. We understand that a new vocabulary and a mode of working the sismals by double numeral tables^ have lately been produced, as the invention of Mr. Conolly ; which improvements are said to be now before the vldmiralty-Board. Translator. * This is a mistake of M. Dnpin. The Transpnrt-]5oard having been dissolved at the end of the war, its twofold duties v/erc divided betw^een the Navy and Victualling Boards. 'I bose which concerned the hiring of transports devolved on the Gonimissioners of the Navy, and those which related to the Sick aud Hurt department, on the Commissioners of the Victualling-B'oard, on whom also de¬ volves the direction and superintendence of all the naval hospitals, at home and abroad. Translator,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31977200_0018.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
