for the work they have to do. They have their greatest breadth abaft the beam, the stern is round, and the bow sharp, with no hollow lines. The sail is of palm canvas, with bamboo lathes across it, sometimes upwards of thirty in number, like a persienne or venetian blind: a Tonkin coasting junk, with its radiating ribbed sail and the curved head drawn forward, looking like a gigantic nautilus. In the Philippine Isles, as in all the country of the Malays, double outriggers, or one on each side, are used, the weather one serving to give stability by its weight, the lee one by its buoyancy: the tarayas, or fishing rafts, with their two masts in the form of shears, their very long bamboo lateen yards curving right and left, and the fishing nets suspended from them, are very picturesque. The Malay coasters have triple masts in the form of a triangle, while the build of the boats is not unlike that of the fishing boats of Provence. In these seas, which are always smooth, the notorious Malay pirates have reproduced the biremes and triremes of the ancient ages. They are very long boats, and the banks of oars or paddles are placed one above and outside the other on the outriggers, and the boats attain a great speed.

To the eastward of New Guinea we meet with only the single outrigger, the happy invention of some savage Archimedes, which, by its leverage, enables the small and narrow canoes to carry large sails. In the Caroline Islands we first see the flying proas, the sail being an equilateral triangle, having its side equal to the length of the canoe. This enormous sail is balanced by a single outrigger in the form of a small solid boat, and the lateral resistance is further increased by the lee side of the canoe being straight and nearly upright, as they always present the same side to the wind, changing the rudder from stern to stem when necessary. The natives of this group, the sailors par excellence of the South Seas, go distances of 700 miles out of sight of land: and their speed is such that the name of flying proas given by the earlier circumnavigators hardly seems an exaggeration.

At Vanikoro, where La Pérouse perished in the year 1788, the ends of the canoes are decked, and in the centre is a raised caboose, from the top of which long slight spars curve down to the outriggers on each side, giving the appearance at a short distance of a gigantic spider walking on the sea. Amongst the Viti or Fiji Group, as well as in the Tonga Islands, the canoes are much longer, reaching to sixty and occasionally eighty feet; some elaborately carved, evincing the skill and patience of the natives, when we consider that their tools were only sharp stones or pieces of shell. Their war canoes are preserved from the sun and weather under beautiful roofs, supported on elegant pointed arches. In New Zealand the raised stem and stern of the canoes is often adorned with large tufts of feathers. At Taïti, in the Society Islands, and Hawaii, in the Sandwich Islands, large double canoes were used. In the latter group, Captain Cook, in the year 1778, saw a canoe 110 feet long in the fleet of King Otu; but all these have disappeared, and coarse fishing canoes are the only native boats now to be seen.

On the north-western coast of America the baidar or umiak, made of skins, is entirely covered up, except a hole in the centre, where the native sits and dexterously plies his double paddle; and this form prevails as far as the coasts of Labrador and Greenland. A specimen of a Greenland fishing canoe, fitted complete, is exhibited by the Danish Government. In Guayaquil and along the coast of Peru, the balsa or large raft, made of a peculiarly light wood, is in use; and where the surf is very heavy, as at Arica and elsewhere, two large inflated skins, placed side by side, and united by a light platform between them, carry the passenger with safety to the beach. Prince Edward Island, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, exhibits a specimen of the North American Indian bark canoe.

Home Fishing Vessels and Boats.

The models of fishing boats are not near so numerous in the present Exhibition as those sent to the Exhibition of 1851; still there are some, both from the ports in the United Kingdom, from Norway, and other countries, which deserve notice, and which we shall have occasion to refer to a little later. The value and importance of the fisheries to every maritime country, not only in a commercial point of view, but as supplying the poor with cheap and nutritious food, and as a means of raising up a body of intelligent seamen, conversant with the set of the tides and inured to every hardship, ready to man lifeboats and carry succour to a stranded vessel in case of need, is of such interest to all seafaring nations, that a brief notice of the more important European and trans-Atlantic coast fisheries, with a description of the best forms of fishing vessels and boats in use, might well form a suitable preface to our Report. But the means are not available, and we are reluctantly compelled to limit our notice to the fisheries of the coasts of the United Kingdom and the surrounding seas,—as the trawling grounds frequented by the Penzance, Plymouth, and Torbay fishermen in the western part of the Channel, the Dogger Bank and North Sea fisheries, the herring fishery on the coast of Scotland, the Nymph Bank, off Waterford, and the recently discovered Rockal Bank, off the N. W. coast of Ireland.

The fishing vessels and boats of Penzance, Plymouth, Torbay, and the South coast generally, are remarkably fine vessels, whether considered as sea boats or pilot boats. The Torbay and Plymouth vessels vary from thirty to sixty-five tons old measurement; they are cutterrigged, and keep the sea in the heaviest weather, trawling with a hawser of 100 fathoms in the midst of Channel gales. The following are the dimensions of the pilot and fishing cutter Queen of the Craft, of Plymouth :-length on deck, 70 feet; breadth, 16 feet; draft of water, 10 feet; 62 tons, old measure; value, about £400. On a wind these vessels spread 500 yards of canvas; but in trawling with a free wind they set a square sail and a studding sail over, making, with the other sails, a spread of from 700 to 800 yards.

Such vessels sweep the bed of the sea with a very large net, of from

eighty to ninety feet in length; it is of a purse form, with wings fortyeight feet at the mouth, with the same length of trawl beam. The management in trawling displays good seamanship, and skill and knowledge of the position of the shoals and rocks at the bottom of the sea, which is determined by land-marks and experience. The fishermen, with a large hawser and net astern, wear and stay their vessels, even in severe weather, with great ease. The quantity of fish caught is occasionally very great, amounting sometimes to between three and four tons on a day's fishing. The fish consist of hake in large quantity, turbot, soles, whiting, dory, brill, plaice, and other kinds of fish. In addition to these pilot fishing cutters, there is a fine class of boats, generally yawl-rigged, termed the Cawsand Bay boats. They are usually clipper-built, vary from twenty-five to forty tons, and are rigged with a gaff mainsail: value, from £80 to £150, or more. Of late years light luggers have been employed, of about thirty feet keel, and drawing about five feet. There is another class of boat on the South coast, termed a hooker, also worthy of notice. These are generally clench-built, yawl-rigged, and are used for hook and line fishing in about thirty fathoms. They ride easily, and come to an anchor, often in severe weather, ten to fifteen miles, or more, from the land. They are thirty-two feet in length, and cost about £70.

Besides these vessels, more immediately employed at Plymouth and Torbay, there is a very fine class of lugger-rigged boats found between Portland, to the East, and the Land's End, to the West. The eastern luggers are from forty to fifty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and draw about seven feet abaft. They are usually sailed with a fore and mizen lug and jib. They are generally employed in mackerel fishing with drift nets. These nets are each about fourteen fathoms on the rope and four fathoms deep. 120 such nets are commonly laid out in a line, to which the boats ride during the night. They not unfrequently land in the morning from 30,000 to 40,000 mackerel, which are immediately sent off by rail to London and other parts. The Cornish or Penzance luggers are vessels of a similar kind, but with a narrow bow and stern. They are sailed in much the same way as the eastern luggers, and are very fast and weatherly. They likewise enclose large catches of mackerel and pilchards.

Well-smacks suitable for fishing in the North Sea were first constructed at Harwich in the year 1712. Fifty years later the first attempt was made to fish for cod with long lines on the Dogger Bank, an extensive bank about sixty miles East of Flamborough Head, and in the year 1798 the vessels had increased to ninety-six smacks. About this period Gravesend, Greenwich, and Barking sent out smacks of similar description. At present the number and tonnage of the well-smacks, and of their crews, and the names of the ports they hail for, are as follows:

These vessels are employed-forty on the cod fishery, six on the haddock fishery, and the remaining 214 in trawling.

There are also many of what are termed dry-bottomed vessels, viz., smacks built without wells, all fishing with trawls in the North Sea. The number of these vessels, their tonnage, and crews, now nearly equals those of the well-smacks. Hull sends out 100; Ramsgate, 96; and Brixham, in Torbay, 113: averaging about thirty-five tons and five men each, or a total of 309 vessels, of 11,185 tons, and 1,488 men and boys.

With respect to the shore fisheries, the following statistical account of the number of fishing boats and their crews on the coast of England was prepared by Mr. John Miller, the intelligent General Inspector of Fisheries in Scotland, and is for the year 1850, since which time, it is believed, no record has been kept. It will be seen that in the nine districts into which the coast of England is divided, there are 4,698 boats, manned by 20,459 men and boys.

The above Tables do not include the Channel Islands' oyster fishery, which employs forty-two boats and 200 men. On the adjacent coast of France, at the four ports of Granville, Cancale, St. Malo, and Dinan, 426 vessels and 2,938 men are employed. The French have lately set a good example in establishing oyster parks on different parts of their coast with great success. In the year 1859 M. Coste,

of the Institute, who had been so successful in his endeavour to stock the rivers of France with salmon, was authorized by the Emperor to establish oyster beds in the bay of St. Brieuc, about thirty miles to the westward of St. Malo. These have proved so successful, that it is understood they are being extended to Brest, Ré, Oléron, and elsewhere on the West coast of France,* The only instance, as far as we are aware, that this has been done in England is at Alnmouth, where the Duke of Northumberland has recently formed oyster beds, which are thriving well. He has also established beds of muscles, to enable the fishermen to supply themselves with bait close at hand, without having to go to a distance to procure it.

In Scotland, on the East coast, the herring fishery is carried on from the shore, and with the exception of some half-decked boats at Fraserburgh, entirely in open boats, which, partly on account of the shallow harbours, are found by experience to be most convenient for the purpose. The boats vary much in form. The Buckie or Moray Firth boats appear to be the best, but the very raking stem and sternpost are objectionable, as rendering the boat unsteady when sailing before the wind. The boats are from thirty-six to forty feet in length, by thirteen feet breadth of beam, and they cost from £40 to £70. On the West coast four-fifths of the Loch Fyne herring boats are half-decked, greatly to the safety and comfort of their crews. The number of boats employed in the thirteen districts into which the East coast is divided is about 13,000; and on the West coast about 2,500 boats; making a total of 15,500 boats, manned by 60,000 men and boys.

In Ireland much of the fishing is carried on in open boats; but on the South coast the Kinsale hooker is used to go off to the Nymph Bank, which lies about forty miles off shore, extending from Waterford westward nearly to Cape Clear, and also for trawling along shore. The hooker has the reputation of being a good sea boat; but this would seem to be its only good quality. The bow is very full and the quarter so lean that the mast is not only obliged to be placed far forward, but to be stayed over the bows, in order that the boats when under sail may not be always flying up in the wind. On the ironbound coast of the West, from the Shannon to Galway, the fishermen use a canoe-a framework of ash covered with canvas-which each time they land they are obliged to haul up on to the cliffs. Altogether the fishery employs about 12,000 boats, making a total for the United Kingdom of 33,000 boats, manned by 130,000 men and boys, a branch of industry well deserving proper encouragement, as affording an inexhaustible source of abundant and nutritious food.

It is to be regretted that few models of European fishing boats are exhibited, nor can we obtain any description of the build of the boats, nor any statistics of the fishing; yet France, Holland, and Sweden must have large fisheries. Norway alone sends models of fishing

*See Voyage d'Exploration sur le Littoral de la France et de l'Italie, par M. Coste, 2ème edition, Paris, 1861.