Читать книгу Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery - George Iles - Страница 29

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A thousand years ago the Vikings of Norway roved the seas in boats of a form which is admired to-day. To those hardy adventurers swiftness and seaworthiness meant nothing less than life and victory, their eyes perforce were keen to note what craft sped fastest through the water, what new curves kept waves from coming aboard. Perchance as they refined upon keel and rib they took golden hints from the shapes of gulls and fish. To be sure, long before science was dreamt of, they had to work by rule-of-thumb, but the thumb was joined to brains that did honor to human nature. On page 56 is illustrated the Viking Ship unearthed early in 1880 at Godstad, near Sandefjord in Norway, in a mound where, according to tradition, a king and his treasure had been buried. It is the most complete and the best preserved vessel of ancient date in existence. It is fully described and pictured in “The Viking Ship,” by Mr. N. Nicolaysen, a work published in 1882 by Mr. Albert Cammermeyer, Christiania. Mr. Nicolaysen regards the vessel as having been built about AD 900, for use in war by the great chieftain whose tomb it became. The ship was 65 feet, 10 inches long, on the keel; with an extreme length over all of 78 feet, 1 inch; amidships it was 16 feet, 9 inches; its depth amidships from the top of the bulwarks to the keel was 3 feet, 11¹⁄₄ inches. The material throughout was pine. The helm, a plank shaped like a broad oar, was fastened to the side of the vessel. In accordance with the number of its oars and shields this ship must have had a crew of sixty-four, besides these came the steersman, the chieftain and probably a few more of his companions, making a total, in all likelihood, of seventy to be carried by her. Says Mr. Nicolaysen: “In the opinion of experts this must be deemed a masterpiece of its kind, not to be surpassed by aught which the shipbuilding craft of the present age could produce. Doubtless, in the ratio of our present ideas, this is rather a boat than a ship; nevertheless in its symmetrical proportions, and the eminent beauty of its lines, is exhibited a perfection never attained until after a long and dreary period of clumsy unshapeliness, when it was once more revived in the clipper-built craft of the nineteenth century.”[5]

[5] A detailed description of the Viking Ship is given in the “Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects”. (London), Vol. XII, p. 298.

CLIPPER SHIP “YOUNG AMERICA.”

Length of deck, 235 feet. Beam molded, 40 feet, 2 inches. Depth of hold, 25 feet, 9 inches. Tonnage, 2900.

Enlarged illustration (85 kB)