The gunwale structure of the St. Francis canoes followed Malecite design; it was often of slightly smaller cross section than that of a Malecite canoe of equal length, but both outwale and cap were of somewhat larger cross section. The stem-pieces were split and laminated in the same manner, but occasionally the lamination was at the bottom, due to the hard curve required where the stem faired into the bottom. Many such canoes had no headboards, the heavy outwales being carried to the sides of the stem pieces and secured there to support the main gunwales. If the headboard was used, it was quite narrow and was bellied toward the ends of the canoe. In some St. Francis canoes the bark cover in the rockered bottom near the ends showed a marked ~V~. In the canoe examined by Adney at the American Museum of Natural History, the ribs inside toward the end showed no signs of being "broken," so it is evident that the ~V~ was formed either by use of a shaped keel-piece in the sheathing or by an additional batten shaped to give this ~V~-form under the center strake. Since the ~V~ began where the rocker in the canoe started, in an almost angular break in the bottom, it is likely that a shaped batten had been used to form it. He could not verify this, however, as the area was covered by the frames and sheathing. [Illustration: Figure 81 ST. FRANCIS CANOE OF ABOUT 1910, with narrow, rockered bottom, a model popular with guides and sportsmen for forest travel.] The sheathing was in short lengths with rounded ends which overlapped, and it was laid irregularly in the "thrown in" style found in many western birch-bark canoes. The ribs were commonly about 2 inches wide and nearly ⅜ inch thick, the width tapering to roughly 1¾ inches under the gunwales. The ends of the ribs were then sharply reduced in width to a chisel point about 1 inch wide; the sides of the sharply reduced taper being beveled, as well as the end. A 15-foot canoe usually had 46 to 50 ribs. The thwarts, unlike those of the Micmac and some Malecite canoes, in which the thwarts were unequally spaced, were equally spaced according to a builder's formula. The ends of the thwarts, or crossbars, were tenoned into the main gunwales and lashed in place through the three lashing holes in the ends of each thwart, except the end ones, which usually had but two. In some small canoes, however, two lashing holes were placed in all thwart ends. The design of the St. Francis thwart was as a rule very plain, gradually increasing in width from the center outwards to the tenon at the gunwale in plan and decreasing in thickness in elevation in the same direction. The ends of the main gunwales were of the half-arrowhead form, and were covered with a bark _wulegessis_, but the flaps below the outwales were sometimes cut off, or they might be formed in some graceful outline.