Primitive efforts in this direction may be classified in the following order: (1) rafts—floating logs, or bundles of brushwood or reeds or rushes tied together; (2) dug-outs—hollowed trees; (3) canoes of bark, or of skin stretched on framework or inflated skins (balsas); (4) canoes or boats of pieces of wood stitched or fastened together with sinews or thongs or fibres of vegetable growth; (5) vessels of planks, stitched or bolted together with inserted ribs and decks or half decks; (6) vessels of which the framework is first set up, and the planking of the hull nailed on to them subsequently. All these in their primitive forms have survived, in various parts of the world, with different modifications marking progress in civilization. Climatic influences and racial peculiarities have imparted to them their specific characteristics, and, combined with the available choice of materials, have determined the particular type in use in each locality. Thus on the north-west coast of Australia is found the single log of buoyant wood, not hollowed out but pointed at the ends. Rafts of reeds are also found on the Australian coast. In New Guinea catamarans of three or more logs lashed together with rattan are the commonest vessel, and similar forms appear on the Madras coast and throughout the Asiatic islands. On the coast of Peru rafts made of a very buoyant wood are in use, some of them as much as 70 feet long and 20 feet broad; these are navigated with a sail, and, by an ingenious system of centre boards, let down either fore or aft between the lines of the timbers, can be made to tack. The sea-going raft is often fitted with a platform so as to protect the goods and persons carried from the wash of the sea. Upright timbers fixed upon the logs forming the raft support a kind of deck, which in turn is itself fenced in and covered over. Thus the idea of a deck, and that of side planking to raise the freight above the level of the water and to save it from getting wet, are among the earliest typical expedients which have found their development in the progress of the art of shipbuilding.

Whether the observation of shells floating on the water, or of split reeds, or, as some have fancied, the nautilus, first suggested the idea of hollowing out the trunk of a tree, the practice ascends to a very remote antiquity in the history of man. Dug-out canoes of a single tree have been found associated with objects of the Stone Age among the ancient Swiss lake dwellings ; nor are specimens of the same class wanting from the bogs of Ireland and the estuaries of England and Scotland, some obtained from the depth of 25 feet below the surface of the soil. The hollowed trunk itself may have suggested the use of the bark as a means of flotation. But, whatever may have been the origin of the bark canoe, its construction is a step onwards in the art of shipbuilding. For the lightness and pliability of the material necessitated the invention of some internal framework, so as to keep the sides apart, and to give the stiffness required both for purposes of propulsion and the carrying of its freight. Similarly, in countries where suitable timber was not to be found, the use of skins or other water-tight material, such as felt or canvas, covered with pitch, giving flotation, demanded also a framework to keep them distended and to bear the weight they had to carry. In the framework we have the rudimentary ship, with longitudinal bottom timbers, and ribs, and cross-pieces, imparting the requisite stiffness to the covering material. Bark canoes are found in Australia, but the American continent is their true home. In northern regions skin or woven material made water-tight supplies the place of bark.

The next step in the construction of vessels was the building up of canoes or boats by fastening pieces of wood together in a suitable form. Some of these canoes, and probably the earliest in type, are tied or stitched together with thongs or cords. The Madras surf boats are perhaps the most familiar example of this type, which, however, is found in the Straits of Magellan and in Central Africa (on the Victoria Nyanza), in the Malay Archipelago and in many islands of the Pacific. Some of these canoes show a great advance in the art of construction, being built up of pieces fitted together with ridges on their inner sides, through which the fastenings are passed. These canoes have the advantage of elasticity, which gives them ease in a seaway, and a comparative immunity where ordinary boats would not hold together. In these cases the body of the canoe is constructed first and built to the shape intended, the ribs being inserted afterwards, and attached to the sides, and having for their main function the uniting of the deck and cross-pieces with the body of the canoe. Vessels thus stitched together, and with an inserted framework, have from a very early time been constructed in the Eastern seas far exceeding in size anything that would be called a canoe, and in some cases attaining to 200 tons burthen.

From the stitched form the next step onwards is to fasten the materials out of which the Hull is built up by pegs or treenails; and of this system early types appear among the Polynesian islands and in the Nile boats described by Herodotus (ii. 96), the prototype of the modern “nuggur.” The raft of Ulysses described by Homer presents the same detail of construction. It is remarkable that some of the early types of boats belonging to the North Sea present an intermediate method, in which the planks are fastened together with pins or trenails, but are attached to the ribs by cords passing through holes in the ribs and corresponding holes bored through ledges cut on the inner side of each plank.

We thus arrive, in tracing primitive efforts in the art of ship construction, at a stage from which the transition to the practice of setting up the framework of ribs fastened to a timber keel laid lengthwise, and subsequently attaching the planking of the hull, was comparatively simple. The keel of the modern vessel may be said to have its prototype in the single log which was the parent of the dug-out. The side planking of the vessel, which has an earlier parentage than the ribs, may be traced to the attempt to fence in the platforms upon the sea-going rafts, and to the planks fastened on to the sides of dug-out canoes so as to give them a raised gunwale. The ribs of the modern vessel are the development of the framework originally inserted after the completion of the hull of the canoe or built-up boat, but with the difference that they are now prior in the order of fabrication. In a word, the skeleton of the hull is now first built up, and the skin, &c., adjusted to it; whereas in the earlier types of wooden vessels the outside hull was first constructed, and the ribs, &c., added afterwards. It is noticeable that the invention of the outrigger and weather platform, the use of which is at the present time distributed from the Andaman Islands eastward throughout the whole of the South Pacific, has never made its way into the Western seas. It is strange that Egyptian enterprise, which seems at a very early period to have penetrated eastward down the Red Sea and round the coasts of Arabia towards India, should not have brought it to the Nile, and that the Phoenicians, who, if the legend of their migration from the shores of the Persian Gulf to the coast of Canaan be accepted, would in all probability, in their maritime expeditions, have had opportunities of seeing it, did not introduce it to the Mediterranean. That they did not do so, if they saw it at all, would tend to prove that even in that remote antiquity both nations possessed the art of constructing vessels of a type superior to the outrigger canoes, both in speed and in carrying power.

The earliest representations that we have as yet of Egyptian vessels carry us back, according to the best authorities, to a period little short of 3000 years before Christ. Some of these are of considerable size, as is shown by the number of rowers, and by the cargo consisting in many cases of cattle. The earliest of all presents us with the peculiar mast of two pieces, stepped apart but joined at the top. In some the masts are shown lowered and laid along a high spar-deck. The larger vessels show on one side as many as twenty-one or twenty-two and in one case twenty-six oars, besides four or five steering. They show considerable camber, the two ends rising in a curved line which in some instances ends in a point, and in others is curved back and over at the stern and terminates in an ornamentation, very frequently of the familiar lotus pattern. At the bow the stem is sometimes seen to rise perpendicularly, forming a kind of forecastle, sometimes to curve backward and then forward again like a neck, λvhich is often finished into a figure-head representing some bird or beast or Egyptian god. On the war galleys there is frequently shown a projecting bow with a metal head attached, but well above the water. This, though no doubt used as a ram, is not identical with the beak à fleur d'eau, which we shall meet with in Phoenician and

Greek galleys. It is more on a level with the proem-bolion of the latter.

The impression as regards the build created by the drawings of the larger galleys is that of a long and somewhat wall-sided vessel with the stem and stern highly raised. The tendencies of the vessel to “hog,” or rise amidships, owing to the great weight fore and aft unsupported by the water, is corrected by a strong truss passing from stem to stern over crutches. The double mast of the earlier period seems in time to have given place to the single mast furnished with bars or rollers at the upper part, for the purpose apparently of raising or lowering the yard according to the amount of sail required. The sail in some of the galleys is shown with a bottom as well as a top yard. In the war galleys during action it is shown rolled up like a curtain with loops to the upper yard. The steering was effected by paddles, sometimes four or five in number, but generally one or two fastened either at the end of the stern or at the side, and above attached to an upright post in such a way as to allow the paddle to be worked by a tiller.

There are many remarkable details to be observed in the Egyptian vessels figured in Duemichen’s Fleet of an Egyptian Queen, and in Lepsius’s Denkmäler. The Egyptian ship, as represented from time to time in the period between 3000 and 1000 b.c., presents to us a ship proper as distinct from a large canoe or boat. It is the earliest ship of which we have cognizance. But there is a noticeable fact in connexion with Egypt which we gather from the tomb paintings to which we owe our knowledge of the Egyptian ship. It is evident from these records that there were at that same early period, inhabiting the littoral of the Mediterranean, nations who were possessed of sea-going vessels which visited the coasts of Egypt for plunder as well as for commerce, and that sea-fights were even then not uncommon. Occasionally the combination of these peoples for the purpose of attack assumed serious proportions, and we find the Pharaohs recording naval victories over combined Dardanians, Teucrians, and Mysians, and, if we accept the explanations of Egyptologists, over Pelasgians, Daunians, Oscans, and Sicilians. The Greeks, as they became familiar with the sea, followed in the same track. The legend of Helen in Egypt, as well as the numerous references in the Odyssey, point not only to the attraction that Egypt had for the maritime peoples, but also to long-established habits of navigation and the possession of an art of shipbuilding equal to the construction of sea-going craft capable of carrying a large number of men and a considerable cargo besides.

But the development of the ship and of the art of navigation clearly belongs to the Phoenicians. It is tantalizing to find that the earliest and almost the only evidence that we have of this development is to be gathered from Assyrian representations. The Assyrians were an inland people, and the navigation with which they were familiar was that of the two great rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. After the conquest of Phoenicia they had knowledge of Phoenician naval enterprise, and accordingly we find the war galley of the Phoenicians represented on the walls of the palaces unearthed by Layard and his followers in Assyrian discovery. But the date does not carry us to an earlier period than 900-800 β.c. The vessel represented is a bireme war galley which is “aphract,” that is to say, has the upper tier of rowers unprotected and exposed to view. The apertures for the lower oars are of the same character as those which appear in Egyptian ships of a much earlier date, but without oars. The artist has shown the characteristic details, though somewhat conventionally. The fish-like snout of the beak, the line of the parodus or outside gangway, the wickerwork cancelli, the shields ranged in order along the side of the bulwark, and the heads of a typical crew on deck (the πpωpevς looking out in front in the forecastle, an eπιβdτηs, two chiefs by the mast, and, aft, the κeλeυσττ∕s and κvβcpvητη). The supporting timbers of the deck are just indicated. The mast and yard and fore and back stays, with the double steering paddle, complete the picture.

But, although there can be little doubt that the Phoenicians, after the Egyptians, led the way in the development of the shipwright’s art, yet the information that we can gather concerning them is so meagre that we must go to other sources for the description of the ancient ship. The Phoenicians at an early date constructed merchant vessels capable of carrying large cargoes, and of traversing the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, perhaps even of trading to the far Cassiterides and of circumnavigating Africa. They in all probability (if not the Egyptians) invented the bireme and trireme, solving the problem by which increased oar-power and consequently speed could be obtained without any great increase in the length of the vessel.

It is, however, to the Greeks that we must turn for any detailed account of these inventions. The Homeric vessels were aphract and not even decked throughout their entire length. They carried crews averaging from fifty to a hundred and twenty men, who, we are expressly told by Thucydides, all took part in the labour of rowing, except perhaps the chiefs. The galleys do not appear to have been armed as yet with the beak, though later poets attribute this feature to the Homeric vessel. But they had great poles used in fighting, and the term employed to describe these (vavμaχa) implies a knowledge of naval warfare. The general characteristics are indicated by the epithets in use throughout the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Homeric ship is sharp (θoη) and swift (ωκcιd)∙, it is hollow (κo∣λη, yλaφvpη,μeγaκηrηζ), black, vermilion-cheeked (μυ∖τoτrapΥ∣oς), dark-prowed (κνανόπρωρος), curved (κopωvtς, aμxf>ιtλισσa), well-timbered (tvσσeλμoς), with many thwarts (πoλvζvγoς, ∈κaτoζυγoς). The stems and sterns are high, upraised, and resemble the horns of oxen (opθoκpaipcu). They present a type parallel in the history of the shipping of the Mediterranean with that of the vikings’ vessels of the North Sea.

On the vases, the earliest of which may date between 700 and 600 b.c., we find the bireme with the bows finished off into a beak shaped as the head of some sea monster, and an elevated forecastle with a bulwark evidently as a means of defence. The craft portrayed in some instances are evidently pirate vessels, and exhibit a striking contrast to the trader, the broad ship of burden (φopτ ∈υpetα), which they are overhauling. The trireme, which was developed from the bireme and became the Greek ship of war (the long ship, vas μ,ακρά, navis lonya, par excellence), dates, so far as Greek use is concerned, from about 700 b.c. according to Thucydides, having been first built at Corinth by Aminocles. The earliest sea-fight that the same author knew of he places at a somewhat later date, —664 b.c. , more than ten centuries later than some of those portrayed in the Egyptian tomb paintings.

The trireme was the war ship of Athens during her prime, and, though succeeded and in a measure superseded by the larger rates,—quadrireme, quinquereme, and so on, up to vessels of sixteen banks of oars (inhabilis prope magnitudinis),— yet, as containing in itself the principle of which the larger rates merely exhibited an expansion, a difference in degree and not in kind, has, ever since the revival of letters, concentrated upon itself the attention of the learned who were interested in such matters. The literature connected with the question of ancient ships, if collected, would fill a small library, and the greater part of it turns upon the construction of the trireme and the disposition of the rowers therein.

During the present century much light has been thrown upon the disputed points by the discovery (1834) at the Piraeus of some records of the Athenian dockyard superintendents, which have been published and admirably elucidated by Boeckh. Further researches carried out by his pupil Dr Graser, who united a practical knowledge of ships and shipbuilding with all the scholarship and industry and acumen necessary for such a task, have cleared up most of the difficulties which beset the problem, and enable us to describe with tolerable certainty the details of construction and the disposition of the rowers in the ancient ship of war.

One point it is necessary to insist on at the outset, because upon it depends the right understanding of the problem to be solved. The ancients did not employ more than one man to an oar. The method employed in mediaeval galleys is entirely alien to the ancient system. M. Jal, Admiral Fincati, Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, and a host of other authorities have all been led to erroneous views by neglect of the ancient texts which overwhelmingly establish this as an axiom of the ancient marine—“one oar one man.”

The distinction between “aphract” and “cataphract” vessels must not be overlooked in a description of the ancient vessels. The words, meaning “unfenced” and “fenced,” refer to the bulwarks which covered the upper tier of rowers from attack. In the aphract vessels these side plankings were absent and the upper tier of rowers was exposed to view from the side. Both classes of vessels had upper and lower decks, but the aphract class carried their decks on a lower level than the cataphract. The system of side planking with a view to the protection of the rowers dates from a very early period, as may be seen in some of the Egyptian representations, but among the Greeks it does not seem to have been adopted till long after the Homeric period. The Thasians are credited...