806 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
tree on the island would be too small to make a dugout shaped like 
these. The largest canoe now found in the Marshall Islands is said to 
be much smaller than many of those built before the advent of the 
white man, when canoes 60 and 70 feet long are said to have been 
common, and long distances were traveled in them, many families 
taking passage. Canoes of such size have long since been supplanted 
by schooners ranging from 20 to 40 tons. The schooners are for the 
most part owned by the chiefs and kings, as the common people are 
not able to accumulate in a lifetime a sufficient amount of money to. 
purchase one. 
Land tenure, or feudal system, still prevails among these people. It 
was reported that several kings have a yearly income of $5,000, all 
derived from copra. 
In several of the islands native boat and vessel builders are doing 
good work, their skill in canoe-building being of material aid in con- 
structing a vessel. Many of the schooners are built in San Francisco. 
At the village were four large sailing canoes and fully a dozen small 
ones. We seldom saw a small canoe in the water, and only on two 
occasions were the large ones afloat, and one of these times it was at our 
request. Although these people have long been associated with white 
men, the shape, build, and rig of the primitive canoe have been retained 
toa remarkable degree, more than at most places where civilizing 
influences have existed for the same length of time. 
The Marshall Island canoe is too complicated in its construction to 
attempt a full description of all its parts; the sketch here given will 
be more comprehensive than a written description. It may be well, 
however, to give a brief account of the manner in which they are put 
together. Heretofore the canoes that have come under our notice have 
been more or less symmetrical—that is, both sides alike, but in this 
canoe we find one side larger than the other, the outrigger side being 
more rounding and fuller than the lee side. To illustrate, if a line be 
drawn from the center of stem and stern, it will be found that there is 
a difference of several inches between the two sides, the outrigger side 
always the larger. Whether the canoe be large or small, it is built 
in this peculiar manner. The object in building the lee side with so 
much more dead-rise than the weather side is on account of its present- 
ing a flat and nearly perpendicular surface to the water, which acts in 
the same manner as a centerboard. 
The sailing canoes were aJl about one size, not varying over a foot 
in length and a few inches in width. The dimensions of the one we 
measured were as follows: Length, 203 feet over all, and 177 feet on the 
water-line; width, 30 inches; depth, 314 inches; draught, 27 inches, 
greatest in the center, rocker keel. The outrigger float was of hard 
wood, 174 feet long, 10? inches wide, and 9 inches thick, and round 
on the bottom. If a section of the float should be cut off, it would 
represent an inverted top. The float is well proportioned, very straight 
Y 
