In 1816 an ancient canoe was found, {115a} some 8 feet below the surface, in cutting a drain, parallel to the Witham, about two miles below Lincoln. This, like the Brigg boat, was hollowed out of a single oak, 38ft. long, and 3ft. at the widest part. Another was found in 1818, in cutting a drain not far from the last, but was unfortunately destroyed by the workmen before they knew what it was. Its length was about the same as that of the previous boat, but it was 4½ft. wide. Two more similar canoes—“dugouts,” as they were technically termed—were found about the same time in drain-cutting, in the same vicinity; and one of these was presented to the British Museum. {115b} The Fen men used to call their boats “shouts,” from the Dutch “schuyt,” a wherry. They propelled them along the drains by a long pole, called a “poy.” It would be too much to say that all these vessels belonged to pre-historic man, because of the presence in one case of a flint implement, connecting it with the neolithic period. Such boats have probably been used by all nations, at early stages of their existence. The Greek writer Hippocrates, about 400 B.C., mentions the “monoxyle,” or one-tree boat; one has been found in the Tunhovd Fyord in Norway. The Russians of the 9th century, in the neighbourhood of Novgorod, used them, laden with slaves for the market. The Goths of the 3rd century, as stated by Strabo, swept the Black Sea with them; and Professor Righ says that they have been used until comparatively modern times in Scandinavia; but at any rate these found in our fens belong to a period, apparently, when the fens were not yet formed, or, at most, were forming.—_Article on the Brigg Boat in_ “_Byegone Lincolnshire_.”