SHIPBUILDING. The simplest form of floating craft designed to support and transport men or objects is the log: the next step is the raft ; then the dugout, or log hollowed out : the `hollowed out' principle being established, the canoe of hark or skins stretched upon light frames naturally followed when lightness was a matter of importance. To secure increased size the dugouts were split and additional planks in serted between the sides to form a broader bottom, the next step naturally being the construction of a vessel of planks sewed together with ropes, or held together with wooden pins and braced by light interior frames. The next form was that of a vessel in which the planking was attached to strong frames by wooden pins or metal fast enings; when this point was reached the larger craft hail whole or partial decks. Lastly we have the iron or steel ship of the present day.
The earliest Egyptian drawings show boats constructed of sawn planks and having sails as well as oars. Notwithstanding the fact that Egyptian ships are the earliest of which we have positive knowledge, there are the strongest reasons for believing that the Egyptians were hut tardy imitators of real seafaring peoples —for seafaring themselves they were not. The Chaldeans seem to have been navigators and shipbuilders, but it is certainly to the Plueni clans that belongs the principal credit for the development of the ship. As early as B.C. 900 the Phmnician war galley had readied the trireme stage, and had decks, masts, yards, stays, sails, a rani, etc. The war galleys dif fered from those used for carrying merchandise in being longer, faster under oars, generally larger. and probably less seaworthy.
Among the ships of the ancients there were many of great size. but it is doubtful if they were strong enough to have 'gone to sea' in the modern sense of the expression. They were chiefly used for harbor service or as house boats, and, though some were fitted as men-of war, it does not appear that they were ever in action. One great ship, of which the dimen
sions are not precisely known, was built for Hiero IL, King of Syracuse, tinder the direction of Archimedes. Though the descriptions are not very clear, she seems to have been copper fastened and sheathed with lead laid over cloths soaked in pitch. She was presented by Hier° to Ptolemy Philopater soon after completion ; her further history is unknown. The ordinary trireme galley was probably 110 to 140 feet in length (including the beak). and had a breadth of 14 to 18 feet. This size seems to have been the general favorite throughout the galley period. As ramming was one of the principal methods of attack, speed, weight, and handiness were of prime importance. and these were better combined in the trireme than in ves sels of greater or less size. With merchant vessels the conditions were somewhat different. Merchant galleys used their sails much more and had less imperative need of speed. They were therefore broader in proportion to the length.
As the use of sails became more common and they were better fitted, ships began to increase in average size. the advantage of speed and power being with the larger ships. As soon as the sea power of Venice began to wane the great centres of shipbuilding changed from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic. William the Conqueror in vaded England in very small vessels, but one hundred years later English ships of consid erable size were in use. King .John established a royal dockyard at Portsmouth. Early in the fourteenth century the use of large sailing ships and of the mariner's compass had become general. In the reign of Henry VII. ship con struction was much Unproved and ships began to take on much of the form which they have preserved to the present day. During the next four centuries improvements of design and con struction were continuously made until the wooden sailing ship reached its culminating point in the clipper ship of the nineteenth cen tury.