The oldest inhabitants of the Netherlands were acquainted with navigation, long before the Roman domination, and it is to be supposed that they could only have reached the various points of their territory by water. Cæsar tells us (~Holmes~, p. 52) that the Britains used very light vessels composed of a frame of linden branches covered with skins. On the other hand, Pope Marcellinus (A. D. 293-304) relates to what an extent the Saxons were to be feared because of their agility and adds that their boats were made of buffalo skins stretched tight over flexible wood. By the side of the long vessels with oars, there must have existed very soon broader and less swift boats. These boats were propelled by sails and finally they wholly displaced the ships with oars. Nothing concerning these primitive boats has been preserved. It is well known that the oldest inhabitants of our country came from the East. They, doubtless, were acquainted with the art of shipbuilding and they must have adapted their types to the necessities forced upon them by the state of the navigable highways of our low-lying lands. It can be assumed that the cradle of the naval architecture of the Netherlands was in the Baltic Sea. So, let us turn our eyes first in that direction where, from the most distant times, the art of shipbuilding must have reached a high degree of perfection. This follows not only from the vessels of the time of the Vikings which have been found, but also from the researches made in late years. These researches have authorized the conclusion that, even in ancient times, the peoples of the North seem to have crossed the North Sea. The Swedish archeologist Montelius even assumes that there were already continuous relations between the West coast of Sweden and the East coast of England at the close of the age of stone. Long before the expeditions, properly so called, made toward the South by the Vikings, the latter crossed the sea, and it is settled beyond question that they were given to navigation at the beginning of our era. Tacitus speaks of the powerful fleets of the Swedes which, in his time, did not use sails but only oars. The author of the work _Vesterlandenes indflyelse poa Nordboenes og saerlig Nordmaennenes ydze kulture leveesat og simfundfs Jorhold i Vickingetiden_ af ~Alexander Bugge~[6] 1905, seems authorized, under these conditions, in saying that the navigation of the North owes its origin to the Suevi and the Goths settled on the shores of the Baltic, whence it passed later to the Norsemen and the Danes. It may also be added, we believe, that the same was the case with regard to the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium and a part of the North of France.