canvas-covered vessels of Tory Island, off the west coast of Ireland, still preserve one development of this type, close at home to us; while the cayaks of the Esquimaux and the larger fishing canoes of the Alaskans and the Greenlanders exhibit the skin-clad variety in many forms. In one of the models exhibited at the Fisheries Exhibition the framework showed in great perfection the ingenuity of the savage, to whom wood was a very scarce and precious article, short pieces being made to serve fitted together and fastened with thongs of hide, the whole being covered with a stout walrus skin. Even outriggers (as understood by the English oarsman) made of double loops of hide just long enough to cross each other and enclose the loom of the oar, were attached to the inner side of the gunwale. Not only bark and skin and canvas-covered canoes exist and seem to have existed from an unknown antiquity, but a similar cause to that of which we were just speaking, viz. a scarcity of wood or of suitable wood, led to the construction of canoes of wood made of short pieces stitched together, and approaching more nearly to the type of vessel which may be called a boat. To these belong the canoes of Easter Island made of drift wood, and of many other islands in the Pacific, which are truly canoes and propelled by paddles, and the same peculiarity of build extends to the Madras surf boats, which are more truly boats. Many of these are tied together through holes drilled or burnt through a ledge left on the inner side of the plank or log, a peculiarity noticeable as appearing even in the early vessels of the Northern Seas. The stitched boat has not a nail Or a peg in her whole composition, but the structure, though liable to leak, is admirably suited for heavy seas and surf-beaten coasts, and owing to its pliability will stand shocks which would shatter a stiffer and tighter build. This being so, it is not surprising that vessels larger than canoes or boats were constructed (some authorities say even as large as 200 tons burden) upon this principle, which is certainly one of very great antiquity.