Some remarkable discoveries in Denmark have revealed recently the remains of a plank-built boat sufficiently complete to admit of the entire reconstruction of the vessel as it floated. If we compare this vessel (see page 336) with the accounts of the hide-covered coracles which carried the Scots from Ireland, or with the lumbering canoe cut out of the solid wood, such as may still be seen on the lakes of Bavaria, we obtain at a glance the measure of the high capacity of those who built the vessels for the Vikings. The Northern antiquaries have fixed her date as “the early iron age,” probably about the fifth century. Close examination has led to the conclusion that she was entirely a row-boat, with no arrangement for help from canvas; “yet it is seventy-seven feet long, measured from stem to stern, and proportionally rather broad in the middle.”[466] It immediately recalls the light handy boats of smaller size still used on the Norwegian coast, and in the Shetlands; and its structure is so thoroughly adapted to a union of lightness, speed, and strength, that it has been compared with the class of vessels now called clippers. [Illustration: ANCIENT DANISH VESSEL.] There are peculiarities in its structure, testifying to the abundance both of material and skilled labour. The timber or heavy planks, for instance, instead of being sawn into boards of equal thickness—or thinness—throughout, are cut thin where thinness was desirable, but thick at points of juncture, that they may be mortised into the cross-beams and gunwale, instead of being merely nailed. The vessel has two bows, or rather is alike at bow and stern, with thirty rowlocks, and it is noticed that these, along with the helm, are reversible, so as to permit the vessel to be rowed with either end forward.[467] The gunwale rises with the keel, at each extremity, into a high beak or prow, a notable feature of the Norwegian boats of the present day. The build is of the kind technically called “clinker,” each plank overlapping that immediately below, from the gunwale to the keel: in the peat-moss containing these remains many other testimonies to wealth and industrial civilization, especially to boat-building, were found. It is alike interesting and instructive to trace the progress of these northern tribes, and the mechanical means at their disposal which enabled them to construct vessels which could in safety navigate distant seas, for there can be no doubt that these wild adventurers, barbarous as they undoubtedly were, became, in the hands of Providence, useful instruments for saving from extinction a large portion of the human race, who, under the Roman rule in the later days of its folly, had become unable to maintain their position either as independent nations, or as provinces of the imperial city. Surely it was good for mankind that the Goths and Vandals became masters of Rome, when Rome in her last decay could no longer govern herself.