The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Ship of the Month - cont'd. speed. ' "When asked what he would do with the (current) roller boat, Mr. Knapp sta­ ted that he would in all probability take her down to Prescott and tie her up. 'She has rolled, ' he said, 'and that is all I expected of her. She has fully demonstrated the principle. ' "On the trip this morning, the boat attained a speed of four or five miles an hour. Much difficulty was experienced in getting her back to her moor­ ings. " The latter is a clear indication of a major ROLLER BOAT problem. Articles appearing in "The Evening Telegram" of April 22 and "The Mail and Empire" of the 23rd both mentioned that a handsome half-tone picture of ROL­ LER BOAT and its inventor had been designed and would be circulated by To­ ronto photographer William Thomson Freeland. This is the operating photo with insert that we reproduced on our photopage in the December issue. Despite the suggestion that ROLLER BOAT would go to Prescott after the wea­ ther improved in the spring of 1898, there are no further reports of the boat doing any rolling at all during the rest of the 1898 season, and it would appear that she remained idle at Toronto. We suspect that there may also have been an effort on the part of the Polson Iron Works to keep ROLLER BOAT within its grasp until the entire construction bill had been paid. Nevertheless, Knapp and his rollers did make the newspapers in 1898, and on May 17th, the "Detroit Free Press" carried an article credited to the "Buf­ falo Express" and, fittingly, entitled "Fine Thing for Target Practice"! "It is reported from Toronto that Inventor Knapp, who has won notoriety, if not fame, for designing a rolling boat, is about to descend upon the navy de­ partment at Washington with plans for a rolling navy. Mr. Knapp's experi­ ments with his strange craft in Toronto harbor last summer (sic) are fresh in the minds of people of the lakes, and it is, therefore, with considerable awe that one reads of the proposal the inventor intends to make to the Wash­ ington authorities. "He asserts that he can build a boat 200 feet high in three months and that it would be an ideal troop-ship. It would be capable of carrying 30, 000 men and 'would, of course, be much faster than any of the ordinary vessels at present running on the ocean. ' As the boat would draw little water, it could get very close to the land. 'It would not need to enter any particular port, ' says the inventor, 'but could land troops at any point on the shores of Cuba. The boat, too, would carry 60, 000 tons of freight and could be used as a coal boat. With 60, 000 tons of coal on board, the rolling boat would be a movable coaling station for the fleet. Both ends o f . the boat could be armed with guns so that the enemy would be unable to take it. ' "It is said that Senor du Bose, the first secretary of the Spanish legation to the United States, inspected the craft at Toronto a few days ago, and ad­ vised Mr. Knapp to open negotiations with the Spanish government, with a view to selling it a boat. This should be done by all means. A craft 200 feet high and rolling around like a porpoise would be a beautiful thing for American sailors to shoot at. " Needless to say, no more rolling boats ever were constructed. Whether Frede­ rick Knapp finally realized the uselessness of his craft is questionable, but we cannot help but think that a lack of financial backing is what most likely did in Knapp's continued experiments with boats that rolled. "The Globe" and "The Mail and Empire" of Tuesday, June 6, 1899, reported that ROLLER BOAT was being readied at Poison's dock for yet another trial, with a departure for Prescott possible later in the week. "The Mail and Empire" of June 8, 1899, reported that ROLLER BOAT had not left that afternoon as had been anticipated, but would leave the following day at seven o'clock. Only one engine would be used to start the trip, but