t, and in 1719 a new establishment was made for the
dimension of ships in our Royal Navy, according to the following
scale:--

--------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------
Number of guns. | 90 | 80 | 70 | 60 | 50 | 40
--------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------
Increase of length | 2 ft. | 2 ft. | 1 ft. | 0 | 4 ft. | 6 ft.
Increase of breadth | 2 in. | 1 ft. | 6 in. | 1 ft. | 1 ft. | 1 ft. 2 in.
Increase of tonnage | 15 | 67 | 59 | 37 | 51 | 63
--------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----------

In addition to the increase in dimensions, much improvement was made in
the same year in the interior arrangements, and in the preservation of
the timber of which ships were constructed. Up till this period both
thick stuff and planks were prepared by charring the inner surface while
the outer surface was kept wet, and this process was continued till the
plank was brought to a fit condition for bending to the shape it was
required to take. In this year, however, the process of stoving was
introduced. It consisted in placing the timber in wet sand and
subjecting it to the action of heat for such time as was necessary in
order to extract the residue of the sap and to bring it to a condition
of suppleness. In the year 1726 the process was favourably reported on
by two of the master shipwrights in their report on the state of the
planking on the bottom of the _Falkland_. Some of the planking had been
charred by the old process, some stoved by the new, and the remainder
had been neither stoved nor charred. The stoved planks were found to be
in a good state of preservation, while many of the others were rotten.
The process remained in use till 1736, when it was superseded by the
practice of steaming the timber. The steaming and the kindred process of
boiling remained in vogue during the whole of the remainder of the era
of wooden shipbuilding. In 1771 the rapid decay of ships in the Royal
Navy once more caused serious attention to be paid to the subject of the
preservation of timber. It was, in consequence, arranged that larger
stocks of timber should be kept in the dockyards, and that
line-of-battle ships should stand in frame for at least a year, in order
to season before the planking was put on. Similarly, frigates were to
stand in frame for at least six months, and all thick stuff and planking
was