SHIP-BUILDING AMONG THE PHOENICIANS.

5

the Phœnicians in ancient times, it seemed that those vessels intended for commercial purposes were without keels, being flat-floored, drawing little water, and of great beam in proportion to their length. Their floor-timbers were continuous, and, with the addition of one futtock only on each side (called by the Greeks 'egcalia,' meaning the ribs or internal parts of the animal body) the frame was completed. Before the introduction of the keel, the framework of the vessel was formed of timbers bent round, and kept in the curved form by beams passing across, to which the timbers were bolted; but as this was a laborious practice, the keel* was introduced, by which the necessary shape of the frame was more easily ensured. The frame was covered with planking, the planks being fastened to it by large nails, or bolts, formed of wood or iron; in the latter case, those that passed through both plank and timber were clenched at the end. It has been ascertained that the mode of dovetailing, which is now so frequently applied in carpentry, was known in those days, for when the planks were not long enough to reach from stem to stern of the vessel, they were joined end to end, the ends being dovetailed into each other.

The strengthening and improvement of the timbers and other parts of a vessel, assumed greater importance as nations became more involved with each other in warlike operations. Accordingly experiments were made, and experience was appealed to, as to the best kinds of wood for ship-building. The Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and the Romans, successively directed their thoughts into this channel.

The poet Thomson gives to the cities of Phoenicia,

The Latin word for keel is 'carina,' from 'curro,' to run, alluding to the mode in which the keel runs or cuts through the water.

Tyre and Sidon, the credit of initiating the navigator's

art in the lines:

'The ports

Of old Phoenicia, first for letters famed,

That paint the voice, and silent speak to sight;
Of art's prime source, and guardian! by fair stars,
First tempted out into the lonely deep;

To whom I first disclosed mechanic arts,
The winds to conquer, to subdue the waves,
With all the peaceful power of ruling trade;
Earnest of Britain.'

The alder and poplar were used by the ancients for ship-building, as being hard and light woods, but oak and fir were chiefly preferred. The Greeks used chestnut and cedar, the latter of which they considered to be very durable. Cypress was valued for its being water-tight, and elm was chiefly used for the parts of the vessel under water. Sometimes a fleet of ships was formed within a month of the time when the timber spread out its leafy arms in the forest-haste, not skill, being used in their formation. When, however, time allowed, ship-timber was not always hastily felled, nor carelessly employed.

As ship-building advanced in general use and repute, practice and experience introduced certain maxims, some of which were really found necessary, while others were the result of caprice or superstition. Hesiod, for example, informs us that it was deemed improper to fell any tim ber for the purpose of ship-building, except on the 17th day of the moon's age, because it being then in the wane, the sap or internal moisture, which is the grand cause of early decay, would be considerably lessened. Vegetius extends the time, and allows that if trees be cut down. between the 15th and 23rd days of the moon, they will endure for a long time without perishing; but he

SHIP-BUILDING AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

7

a dds that, if that limitation be transgressed, the practice and experience of all artisans shows that the wood becomes worm-eaten and rotten in an incredibly short space of time. Some suppose that the timber felled on the day of the new moon was absolutely incorruptible; they were even attentive to the quarter from whence the wind blew, and to the season of the year-for instance, in the beginning of autumn it was deemed improper to fell timber for ship-building, except the wind was westerly; or in the winter, unless it blew from the north.

The materials with which the planks or other parts of these vessels were fastened together were various. Sometimes wooden bolts were employed, and at other times they were connected together with thongs made from the skins and sinews of animals; iron seldom coming within the reach of the more primitive naval architects. To stop leakage, the ancients used lime and pounded shells, which being observed to waste away, pitch, resin, and wax were employed. Sometimes the crevices were first stopped up with flax, and then leather was employed for sheathing; at a later time sheet-lead was used for the same purpose, and copper nails. For their tools they used flints and shells for cutting, while the bones of certain fishes served them to pierce, saw, and plane with.

Before proceeding further, it will be necessary to give some account of the origin of the component parts of a ship, beginning with the sail. About 1230 years before the Christian era, as far as we are able to discern actual fact through the hazy and fabulous records of antiquity, the adoption of sails promoted the nautical art beyond former conception, and served as an epoch in history. The statements of the early writers of the world, says Charnock, in his ' History of Marine Architec

ture,' seem to concur in describing Dædalus of Athens, the most skilful mechanician of the day, as the individual who first pressed the wind into the naval service of man.

Writers have tried rather fancifully, as we think, to explain some of the ancient legends found in Lemprière, as denoting attempts to cross the seas by sailing-boats. The bards of the time, whose recitations pleased in proportion to the quantity of the marvellous they contained, recited the legend of the flight of Daedalus from the vengeance of Minos, King of Crete, and the unfortunate death of Icarus, his son. Dædalus, say they, had carefully fitted to his own body, and to that of his son, wings made of feathers and wax. Thus equipped, they took their flight through the air over that part of the sea which lay between Crete and Italy. Icarus, with the rashness and unsteadiness of youth, sought a higher flight than his sire; and, getting too near the sun, the waxen cement of his wings was loosened, which, thus becoming powerless, he fell and was drowned in that part of the Egean Sea, or Archipelago, which bore for ages after the appellation of the Icarian Sea.

The fact of the passage of one of these persons from Crete to Italy, and the drowning of the other, is undisputed, also that they went over the water and not over the land. Balloons being at that time unknown, it is supposed that boats were employed, and Dædalus and Icarus, cutting their way through the waters with sails swelled out by the wind, seemed to have flown over it with wings. According to this theory, the vessel of Icarus, who seems not to have had his sail sufficiently under control, was capsised, and thus, as truly said in the fable, 'he dropped into the sea and was drowned.'

Many other voyages, under circumstances novel for the times, have received the utmost embellishment of

THE ORIGIN OF THE SAIL.

9

the poetic art. When we consider the surprise of savage races at beholding ships, like floating castles, with expanded wings, making their unassisted way over the sea, we discern easily whence arose the fiction of the flight of Perseus to the Gorgons, who, we are told by Aristophanes, was carried in a ship. The story of Triptolemus, who was feign to ride about the world on a winged dragon, doing good to the human race, receives a fanciful. explanation in his having been employed by his country. men to procure corn in a ship from foreign shores, for the supply of their necessities. The winged horse, Pegasus, is described as a ship of that name, fabled to have been the offspring of Neptune, the god of the sea. In a word, it is thus sought to account for the stories of ships transformed into fishes and birds, so frequently met with in the ancient poets.

By some the idea of a sail has been referred to the nautilus, or sailor-fish, which is seen in the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Polynesian waters of the Pacific. It is oftentimes observed in calm weather, floating on the surface of the water, using its side fins as oars, its hinder one for steering, while its dorsal fin serves as a sail, which is shortened,' in nautical phraseology, when it is desirous of sinking.

'Sailing away in his ancient shell;

He has no need of a compass like us,
Foul or fair weather he manages well.'

Again, Byron speaks in some picturesque lines of

'The tender nautilus, who steers his prow,
The seaborn sailor of his shell canoe,

The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea.'

The material of which the sail was composed varied according to the produce of the country. Hercules is said to have used the skin of a lion, which was his