Some, however, were discovered in a vertical position, others had the keel uppermost, and these latter had evidently sunk in a storm. In one of these boats was a diorite hatchet of the kind characteristic of Neolithic times; another, the wood of which was perfectly black, had become as hard as marble, and in it was a cork plug. Then, as now, the oak which yields cork was foreign to the cold climate of Scotland. We will quote but one of the discoveries made in England. In 1881 a canoe, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, was found at Bovey-Tracey in Devonshire. It lay in a deposit of brick-earth more than twenty-nine feet below the highest level reached by the waters of the Bovey.31 It was more than thirty-five inches wide, and its length could not be exactly determined, the workmen having broken it in getting it out. An eminent archæologist is of opinion that this boat dates from the Glacial epoch, perhaps even from a more remote time. If this hypothesis, the responsibility of which we leave to him, be correct, this is the most ancient witness in existence of prehistoric navigation. We must also mention a boat found near Brigg (Lincolnshire), a few feet from a little river that flows into the Humber. It is about forty-five feet long by three and a half feet wide, and is some three feet high. The prow is fluted. There are no traces of a mast, though the size of the boat must have made it difficult to manage with oars alone. One of the pirogues preserved at the Copenhagen Museum is made of one half of the trunk of a tree, some six feet long, hollowed into the shape of a trough, and cut straight at both ends.32 It is curious to compare this clumsy structure with a boat recently discovered beneath a tumulus at Gogstadten in Norway (Fig. 14), of which, though it dates from historic times, we give a drawing, as it is a good illustration of the progress made. The dead Viking had been laid in his boat, as the most glorious of tombs; with its prow pointing seawards, for would not the first thoughts of the chief when he awoke in another life be of the sea which had witnessed his triumphs? The sides of the boat, which was more than sixty-six feet long and fifteen across the widest part, were painted, and around it was ranged a series of shields lapping over one another like the scales of a fish, and not unlike the designs seen in the celebrated Bayeux tapestry. A block of oak intended to receive the mast was placed in the centre of the boat, and near the skeleton were oars some fifteen feet long and similar in form to those now in use. [Illustration: 14.] Ancient Scandinavian boat found beneath a tumulus at Gogstadten.