Sails must soon have been added to these means of nautical progression. But it would be a difficult matter to fix any precise date for this important discovery, which was the point of transition between elementary and primitive navigation, and more important voyages. This progress could not have been made without the help of metals.
In an article entitled 'Origine de la Navigation et de la Pêche,' M. de Mortillet passes in review all the discoveries, which have been made in different countries, of the earliest boats belonging to pre-historic man.
After stating that the Museum of Copenhagen contains drawings of three ancient canoes, he goes on to say:—
"The first canoe is the half-trunk of a tree 17 inches wide, cut straight at the two ends, about 7 feet in length, and hollowed out in a trough-like shape. This canoe much resembles that of Switzerland.
"The second was about 10 feet in length, one end terminating in a point, the other more rounded. It was formed of the trunk of a tree hollowed out into two compartments, a kind of cross-stay or seat being left at a point about one-third of the length from the widest end.
"The third canoe, No. 295, likewise made of the trunk of a tree, was much longer, having a length of at least 13 feet, and was terminated by a point at both ends. At the sharpest end, the hollow is finished off squarely, and there is also a small triangular seat at the extremity. Two cross-stays were left in the interior.
"These three canoes are classed in the bronze series; a note of interrogation or doubt is, however, affixed to the two latter.
"Ireland, like Scandinavia, has a history which does not go back very far into the remote past; like Scandinavia, too, Ireland has been one of the first to collect with care not only the monuments, but even the slightest relics of remote antiquity and of pre-historic times. The Royal Irish Academy has collected at Dublin a magnificent Museum, and the praiseworthy idea has also been put in practice of publishing a catalogue illustrated with 626 plates.
"In these collections there are three ancient canoes. The first is about 23 feet long, 31 inches wide, and 12 inches deep, and is hollowed out of the trunk of an oak, which must have been at least 4½ feet in diameter. This boat, which came from the bogs of Cahore on the coast of Wexford, is roughly squared underneath. One of the ends is rounded and is slightly raised; the other is cut across at right angles, and closed with a piece let in and fitted into grooves which were caulked with bark. In the interior there are three cross-stays cut out of the solid oak.
"The interior, at the time the canoe was discovered, contained a wooden vessel, intended to bale out the boat, and two rollers, probably meant to assist in conveying it down to the sea.