Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/349

 start and keep the machinery in proper working order.

In a word, the row-galley constituted the steamship of the ancients, as distinguished from their sailing vessels. She had sails to aid her progress when the winds were fair, as a steamer now has, but the one depended on her oars as much as the other now does upon her machinery; and, however vast the improvements, there is really no difference in principle between the galley of the ancients and the steamship of to-day. In practice they are the same, except that steam is substituted for manual labour. An oar is a paddle, and the blades of the oars fastened together, like the spokes round the axle of a wheel, and projecting into the water, constitute the paddle-wheel of modern times.