The development of the raft is admirably illustrated in the description, given us by Homer in the Odyssey, of the construction by the hero Ulysses of a vessel of the kind. Floating timber is cut down and carefully shaped and planed with axe and adze, and the timbers are then exactly fitted face to face and compacted with trenails and dowels, just as the flat floor of a lump or lighter might be fashioned and fitted nowadays. A platform is raised upon the floor and a bulwark of osiers contrived to keep out the wash of the waves (cf. infra, Malay boats). It seems as if the poet, who was intimately acquainted with the sea ways of his time, intended to convey the idea of progress in construction, as illustrated by the technical skill of his hero, and the use of the various tools with which he supplies him.
On the other hand the dug-out had its limitations. The largest tree that could be thrown and scooped out afforded but a narrow space for carrying goods, and presented problems as to stability which must have been very difficult to solve. The shaping of bow and stern, the bulging out of the sides, the flattening of the bottom, the invention of a keel piece, the attempt to raise the sides by building up with planks, all led on towards the idea of constructing a boat properly so called, or perhaps to the invention of the canoe, which in some ways may be regarded as the intermediate stage between dug-out and boat.
Meanwhile the raft had undergone improvements such as those which Homer indicates. It had arrived at a floor composed of timbers squared and shaped. It had risen to a platform, the prototype of a deck. It was but a step to build up the sides and turn up the ends, and at this point we reach the genesis of ark and punt, of sanpan and junk, or, in other words, of all the many varieties of flat-bottomed craft.
When once we have reached the point at which the improvements in the construction of the raft and dug-out bring them, as it were, within sight of each other, we can enter upon the history of the development of boats properly so called, which, in accordance with the uses and the circumstances that dictated their build, may be said to be descended from the raft or the dug-out, or from the attempt to combine the respective advantages of the two original types.
Uses and circumstances are infinite in variety and have produced an infinite variety of boats. But we may safely say that in all cases the need to be satisfied, the nature of the material available, and the character of the difficulties to be overcome have governed the reason and tested the reasonableness of the architecture of the craft in use.
It is not proposed in this article to enter at any length into the details of the construction of boats, but it is desirable, for the sake of clearness, to indicate certain broad distinctions in the method of building, which, though they run back into the far past, in some form or other survive and are in use at the present day.
The tying of trunks together to form a raft is still not unknown in the lumber trade of the Danube or of North America, nor was it in early days confined to the raft. It extended to many boats properly so called, even to many of those built by the Vikings of old. It may still be seen in the Madras surf boats, and in those constructed out of driftwood by the inhabitants of Easter Island in the south Pacific. Virgil, who was an archaeologist, represents Charon’s boat on the Styx as of this construction, and notes the defect, which still survives, in the craft of the kind when loaded—
| “Gemuit sub pondere cymba Sutilis, et multam accepit rimosa paludem!” Aen. vi. 303. |
Next to the raft, and to be counted in direct descent from it, comes the whole class of flat-bottomed boats including punts and lighters. As soon as the method of constructing a solid floor, with trenails and dowels, had been discovered, the method of converting it into a water-tight box was pursued, sides were attached plank fashion, with strong knees to stiffen them, and cross pieces to yoke or key (cf. ζύγον κληίς) them together. These thwarts once fixed naturally suggested seats for those that plied the paddle or the oar. The ends of the vessel were shaped into bow or stern, either turned up, or with the side planking convergent in stem or stern post, or joined together fore and aft by bulkheads fitted in, while interstices were made water-tight by caulking, and by smearing with bitumen or some resinous material.
The evolution of the boat as distinct from the punt, or flat-bottomed type, and following the configuration of the dug-out in its length and rounded bottom, must have taxed the inventive art and skill of constructors much more severely than that of the raft. It is possible that the coracle or the canoe may have suggested the construction of a framework of sufficient stiffness to carry a water-tight wooden skin, such as would successfully resist the pressure of wind and water. And in this regard two methods were open to the builder, both of which have survived to the present day: (1) the construction first of the shell of the boat, into which the stiffening ribs and cross ties were subsequently fitted; (2) the construction first of a framework of requisite size and shape, on to which the outer skin of the boat was subsequently attached.