Fig. 21 is an illustration of an Anglo-Saxon ship taken from an old Saxon calendar, which is, or was, in the Cottonian Library, and which is supposed to have been written about half a century before the Norman Conquest. It is reproduced in Strutt's "Compleat View of the Manners, Customs, Arms, Habits, etc., of the Inhabitants of England, from the arrival of the Saxons till the reign of Henry VIII.," published in 1775. The proportions of the boat as represented are obviously impossible. The sketch is, however, interesting, as showing the general form and mode of planking of the vessel, and the nature of the decorations of the bow and stern. We see that the vessel was a warship, as the keel prolonged formed a formidable ram. We also may notice that the sail was relied on as a principal means of propulsion, for there are apparently no notches or rowlocks for oars. The steering was effected by two large oars, in a similar manner to that adopted by the ancient Egyptians and other Mediterranean peoples. The extraordinary character of the deck-house will be observed. It is, of course, purely symbolical, and may, at most, be interpreted as meaning that the vessel carried some sort of structure on deck. In the seventh and eighth centuries of the Christian era the scene of maritime activity was transferred from the Mediterranean to the North of Europe. The Norsemen, who overran the whole of the European seaboard at one time or another, were the most famous navigators of the period immediately preceding the Middle Ages. Any record connected with their system of ship-construction is necessarily of great interest. The fleets of the Norsemen penetrated into the Mediterranean as far as the imperial city of the Eastern emperors. In the north they discovered and colonized Iceland, and even Greenland; and there are good grounds for believing that an expedition, equipped in Iceland, founded a colony in what are now the New England States five centuries before Columbus discovered the West Indies. Unfortunately, the written descriptions extant of the Norse ships are extremely meagre, and if it had not been for the curious custom of the Norsemen of burying their great chiefs in one of their ships and heaping earth over the entire mass, we should now know nothing for certain of the character of their vessels. Many of these ship-tombs have been discovered in modern times, but it happened in the majority of instances that the character of the earth used was unsuited to their preservation, and most of the woodwork was found to be decayed when the mounds were explored. Fortunately, however, in two instances the vessels were buried in blue clay, which is an excellent preserver of timber, and, thanks to the discovery of these, we have now a tolerably complete knowledge of the smaller classes of vessels used by the Vikings. One of them was discovered, in 1867, at Haugen, but by far the most important was found in 1880, at Gogstad, near Sandefjord, at the entrance of the