Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/123

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 117 way of skill, besides having done so much of the actual toil to their hands. As soon as the keel was laid, Mark set up the frame, which came together with very little trouble. The whiles were then got out, and were fitted, each piece being bolted in its allotted place. As the work had already been put together, there was little or no dub bing necessary. Aware that the parts had once been ac curately fitted to each other, Mark was careful not to dis turb their arrangement by an unnecessary use of the adze, or broad-axe, experimenting and altering the positions of the timbers and planks; but, whenever he met with any obstacle, in preference to cutting and changing the mate rials themselves, he persevered until the parts came to gether as had been contemplated. By observing this cau tion, the whole frame was set up, the wailes were fitted and bolted, and the garboard-streak got on and secured, without taking off a particle of the wood, though a week was ne cessary to effect these desired objects. Our mariners now measured their new frame. The keel was just four-and-twenty feet long, the distance be tween the knight-heads and the taffrail being six feet greater; the beam, from outside to outside, was nine feet, and the hold might be computed at five feet in depth. This gave something like a measurement of eleven tons ; the pinnace having been intended for a craft a trifle smaller than this. As a vessel of eleven tons might make very good weather in a sea-way, if properly handled, the result gave great satisfaction, Mark cheering Bob with accounts of crafts, of much smaller dimensions, that had navigated the more stormy seas, with entire safety, on various occa sions. The planking of the Neshamony was no great matter, being completed the week it was commenced. The caulk ing, however, gave more trouble, though Bob had done a good deal of that sort of work in his day. It took a fort night for the honest fellow to do the caulking to hps own rnind, and before it was finished another great discovery was made by rummaging in the ship s hold, in quest of some of the fastenings which had not at first been found. A quantity of old sheet-copper, that had run its time on a vessel s bottom, was brought to light, marked " copper for