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'. THE VIKINGS AND THEIR CRAFT. (From Syren and Shipping, London.) Not a little of the love of the average Briton for the sea is the heredi- tary gift of those brave and hardy pirates and traders, the Vikings. As with the former inhabitants of ancient Egypt and Etruria, is is the spade which has done much to disclose the life history of these . intrepid sea rovers. Their arms, their clothing, their ornaments and their ships have all been rescued from the friendly clay or peat beneath which they have lain for centuries, and these relics of a barbaric past, together with the saga and edda literature and the not inartistic rock drawings, spell in pretty accurate language the life and customs of a people whose influence on the English temperament is well marked even. today. The Norsemen, as they are sometimes generically called, were essentially a maritime peo- ple to whom the sea called with irresistible voice. To them the North Sea with its affiliated waters was not a barrier, but a highway, leading to Northern Russia, Iceland and Greenland; to England, Ireland, France and even the remoter countries of the Mediterranean. The Norsemen reaped the harvest which their more peaceful victims sowed, and that they did so was as much due to the excellence of their ships as to their own daring and enterprise. Like the shipping of today, the Viking ships ful- filled four distinct purposes. There were war vessels, cargo carriers, pas- senger or ferry boats, and a boat of fine design, specially intended for rapid sailing--the prototype of the modern yacht. As to the size and construction of the Viking ship, the statements of the heroic records of Harald Bluetooth, of Knut the Great, of Hakon Jarl the Great, Hakon the Good, Olaf Tryggvason and St. Olaf, are amply illustrated by the vari- ous archeological finds which have been made of exhumed ships, dug out of bog, together with countless other. relics of these ancient seafarers. The highest development of the naval architecture of the Vikings was attained in the "serpent"; or: war vessels, These were generally constructed of oak, were clinker built and were propelled with. sails or oars. A good example, though small, of these ancient craft, is the Gokstad ship, dug up at Sandefiord, near the entrance to the Christiania Fiord. This vessel if 78 ft. long, 16 ft. 7 in. beam, with a depth of 5 ft. 9 in., the keel being 57 ft. in length and 14 in. deep. On either side was a row of shields designed to form a sort of raised bulwark to protect the rowers who tugged in twos or threes at the 25-ft. to 40-ft. oars or sweeps, which projected through holes in the side of the ship, which could be closed by sliding oak shutters or panels in bad weather, or when the vessel was under sail. The mast was usually a substantial spar of pine, which could be lowered aft when the wind was not fair--that is, not right aft, for the sail was a square one. .On the Gokstad boat was found the re- mains of three small boats, varying from 21 ft. to 12 ft. in length, two of them being masted.: The sail was usually made of wadmal, a blanket-like cloth, and was often dyed, or lined on both sides with fur, or a gaily striped sort of velvet, which, with the. painted hull with its dragon- head bow, gave the boat a peculiarly picturesque and formidable appear- ance. What the peaceful denizens of some seaside valley must have thought when they saw a fleet of these pirates, with their pennants flying and shields overlapping like the scales of a fish, can be readily imagined. Hard knocks and no quarter was the order of the day. The measure of length applied to these craft was the number of seats she contained. Thus the '"'serpent" of Knut the Great was a sixty-seater which, allowing, say, 8 ft. 6 in. between the seats, would, with the stem and stern portions, give a total length of 300 ft. or over. The celebrated Long Serpent of Olaf Tryggvason, which was quite 180 ft. in length, was divided by bulkheads between the rowing benches into thirty-four rums or rooms, a half-room accommodating eight persons, making, with the forecastle, etc., quarters for over 700 men. Usually, except in very high ships, there was no laid deck except at the raised forecastle and poop. Naturally, these craft, in spite of the cattle hair which tightened the joints, made some water, and to get rid of this two wells were provided, into which a man descended and passed the water in pails to those above. A leaky ship was justly regarded as unseaworthy, and the Norse law excused a crew from serving in a ship which required bailing three times in two days. 'As the voyages made by these craft were of uncertain duration the commissariat was a most important. matter. The war vessels carried regular cooks, and as fires could not be lighted on board, the cooks, with their huge porridge pots, etc., were put on shore, when possible, to prepare food for all hands. 'Rowers and fighters would, under such circumstances, sleep some on shore in tents and others on board under awnings of skin. From a well- known saga we learn something of the quantity and variety of the food- stuffs carried to feed these crews. Svein of Denmark was chasing Harald, and the latter, to facilitate his escape, ordered his crew to throw overboard meal, wheat and pork, and also to cut holes in the ale barrels with the view of lightening the ship. Of the ale much was carried, and a barrel was always on tap for the thirsty rowers. Butter, hard bread and smoked or salted meats were also included in the stores, for hard working and harder fighting begot the healthiest of appetites. But the ships of these Vikings were more than mere fighting or carrying machines. The fale tical sentiment was deeply woven into the religious and poetical feeling : the race. Modern language has no more poetical description of a swift steamer that styles her an ocean greyhound, but the boats of the hove mariners were Serpents, Deer of the Surf, Mares of the Surf, Gulls of the Fiord, Sea Steeds, Ravens of the Sea, Snakes, etc. The oars were poeti- cally described as "wave sweepers," "long arms, the feet of the horse of the sea." The sails were "dragons' wings," "Odin's beard, ete., ate Even the more humble and less puissant trader had a place in the nationa sagas, for was not Odin the god of cargoes? The '"farman'" and Rene man" were honored members of the community, as well these sea traders and merchants might be when the length of their adventurous vayages and the valuable merchandise they brought home are considera, on sight of land navigation was tolerably easy. The crew landed eac He . and he upon whom the lot fell cooked' for the ship's SOrpnes 1 en weary weeks slipped by while waiting for a fair wind, for ane af ne the ship of burden--moved by sail alone. Out of sight of land there as the sun by day and the pole star by night to direct these 'hardy pag? but in thick weather navigation was a work of difficulty, an pe : Norsemen colonized Iceland and Greenland, and voyaged along f Aa 'ern seaboard of the present United States, a.feat more wonder rate those of Columbus or, Cabot, Dried fish, tallow, furs and: tem Sate "the olitward freishts of the Viking merchantmen, while homewar - brought cloth, silks, honey, linen, wheat, flour, wax and kettles. MARINE REVIEW. | 47 AROUND THE GREAT LAKES. Capt. George P. McKay of Cleveland has been notified from Canada that a gas buoy (a blinker) has been established on Grubb's reef, Lake Erie. 'The buoy is about % mile south (probably a little to the west) of the south end of the reef and is in 25 ft. of water. : It was of course a slip of the pencil in the last issue of the Review that caused the Chicago Ship Building Co. to be credited with a job of repairs on the steel steamer Mauch Chunk that was done at the works of the Ship Owners' Dry Dock Co. An illustration in this issue shows the Mauch Chunk in one of the docks of the Ship Owners' company. _ About a month will be taken up in putting together at Quebec th parts of the first of the large ocean-going steamers built at the Cleveland works of the American Ship Building Co. and taken down the St. Law- rence in sections. The second steamer has not left Cleveland as yet. It is no small task to divide into two parts a 7,000-ton steamer, tow the parts from_Cleveland to Quebec and then put them together again. _ Col. William St. John, representing the Safety (Car Heating & Light- ing Co. of New York, was in Cleveland and Detroit during the past week. Col. St. John gives special attention to the Pintsch gas buoy business of the New York company. He says that improvements have been made in the bell buoy, operated by gas, upon which engineers of his company have 'been at work for a long time past, and he is quite confident that another trial of this type of aid to navigation in one of the lake channels will prove its success. Probably no branch of the postal. service in the country shows a greater steady increase than the business of the office that serves ships passing up and down the Detroit river. In the present season the number of pieces of mail received for delivery to vessels has far exceeded any pre- vious year and there is constant increase. One day last week as many as 400 -pieces were received in one mail. The increase of work has made another carrier necessary, and word has been received from Washington that, beginning July 1, another man will be allowed. 3 The Canadian government has decided to recognize the bravery of Capt. G. D. McDougall and the officers and crew of the Canadian Pacific steamer Athabasca, which went to the rescue of the United States barge Preston on Lake Superior June 29, 1901, and saved all on board. The government, through the minister of marine, has signified its intention of presenting Capt. McDougall with a handsome piece of silver, First Mate McPhee with a binocular glass, Chief Engineer William Lockerby with.a dur a and the members of the crew with silver medals suitably in- scribed. j f oGGGR At Duluth, a few days ago, a jury in the case of the United States against the Davidson Steamship Co. to recover $4,012.50, damages to the breakwater at Two Harbors, returned a verdict for the full amount. The steamer Shenandoah of the Davidson fleet collided with the new break- water one night last June. The amount sued for represents the money needed to replace the injured cribs. The plaintiff alleged incompetence on the part of the ship's master, while the defense endeavored to show that the plaintiff had given no notice of any improvement having been made at Two Harbors and that the light that marked the end of the improvement was thought to be that of a vessel. Arrangements of Messrs. Botsford, Jenks and Duncan of Port Huron with the Grand Trunk Ry. Co. for the construction of a large steel ele- vator at Point Edward, across the river from Port Huron, and for the development of a large freight carrying trade between the head of Lake Superior and Port Huron are temporarily in abeyance. Inability of the Port Huron parties to secure structural steel for the elevator was the first cause of a suspension of operations. Delay with the new enterprise does not, however, interfere with the package freight carrying arrangement which the Port Huron company has with the Grand Trunk and its boats in this line are plying regularly between Port Huron and Lake Superior ports. The Port Huron people are also proceeding with 'the work of establishing a steel ship building plant on the St. Clair river. THE PACIFIC CABLE. The increase of the capital stock of the Pacific Cable Co. from $3,000,000 to $12,000,000 is announced to be for the plans of that company for carrying out important construction work. At the offices. of the Commercial Cable Co., which is under the control of the same men who will control the Pacific Cable Co., it was said that the contractors had already completed one-third of the cable required for the laying of the section from San Francisco to Honolulu. This line is expected to be laid and in working order by November of this year, It will be 2,078 miles in length. The plans are to continue the cable to Manila by way of Midway island and Guam. The distance from Honolulu to Midway island is given as 1,140 miles, from Midway to Guam, 2,293 miles, and from Guam to the Philippine islands 1,360 miles. The plan calls for the landing of the cable on the eastern shore of the island of Luzon, where connections will be had with Manila by a land line across the island. The total length of the cable line is 6,871 miles. The project of having the cable station on Wake island has been abandoned. The whole of the cable is being constructed in England, under a contract which calls not only for its construction, but for its laying and the putting of the line in working order. The contract provides that the construction company shall lay the cable which shall be maintained in working order for thirty consecutive days, It will then be turned over to the cable company. The several stretches of cable will make one ship load each. The cable laying steamer, which is one of the largest ships afloat, will carry a sufficient amount of cable in one cargo for the laying of the longest line, from Midway island to Guam. The line from San Francisco to Honolulu, which is to be laid before the end of the year, will also be carried at a single trip of this steamer. It is estimated the entire cost of the completed cable from San Francisco to Manila will be in the neighborhood of $12,000,000. This will include the various cable stations. The completion of the San Francisco-Manila cable will give a complete line under a single management from Europe to the United States, a trans-continental line from the Atlantic to the Pacific and a cable line from San Francisco to Manila. In all there will be in the neighbor- hood of 10,000 miles,of cable and 5,000 miles of direct land lines. The line is. expected to be completed and in working order to Manild'some time in 7904, oo aes if 10 99%9b.c45 t 2 Ik Se ss oles sd iit, Ss : BID i we 4g Jon 1189 The keel of the battleship. Virginia has just been;Jaid -at:the' works! wf the Newport News Ship Building & Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Va.