210 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



There is about as much diversity in row-boats as there 

 is in wagons; and to secure a low-priced yet well-shaped, 

 steady boat, is not so easy as it may appear to those who 

 have not tried it. A cheap boat is apt to be poorly 

 built — cheap both in materials and w^orkmanship — of infe- 

 rior woods and badly modeled. A really good, shapely 

 boat can rarely be bought under fifty dollars as the mini- 

 mum figure. Knowing this, we have gone to considerable 

 trouble to seek out for the benefit of our settlers a relia- 

 ble firm who will place in their hands a really good boat 

 for a very low price. 



This firm (R. J. Douglas & Co., of Waukegan, Illinois) 

 we have already had occasion to refer to, as the manufac- 

 turers of the Champion windmill. The "Eureka" they 

 claim, and honestly so, to be " the best boat ever put on 

 the market for the money." Of a beautiful model, sharp- 

 pointed at both ends (a rudder can be fitted if desired), 

 with a ten-inch bottom board in place of the usual keel, 

 it is at the same time swift, steady, and of light draught, 

 just the very boat we need for ordinary row-boat purposes 

 on our shallow-shored Florida lakes. 



The cut on next page, for which we are indebted to the 

 courtesy of the builders, coupled with their own descrip- 

 tion following, will give our readers a better idea of the 

 natty little Eureka than any words of our own : 



"Instead of keel, it has a 10-inch bottom board, | inch 

 thick, which makes it perfectly flat on the bottom, and it 

 has five strakes on a side. The frames, stems and wales, 

 are of selected white oak in all grades ; and in basswood 

 boats the bottom and first two strakes are of pine or cedar 

 and only the three upper strakes of basswood. The plank- 

 ing is f inch in clinkers and ^ inch in carvel boats. The 

 row-locks are of our own design, and the sockets are fast- 

 ened on with bolts so that they can not pull off. Instead 



