ETHNOLOGY HBDLEY. 285 



inches in greatest breadth ; another I measured on the atoll was 

 twenty-nine feet in total length, one foot ten inches in greatest 

 depth, one foot four inches in greatest breadth, twenty feet the open 

 space from deck to deck, twelve feet length of outrigger float, four 

 feet distance from float to hull. 



As previously described (p. 32), the hull is hewn out of a log 

 of pouka, which is trimmed down for stem and stern, and, except 

 a foot of deadwood left solid fore and aft, is hollowed to a shell 

 three-quarters of an inch thick. In longitudinal-vertical section 

 it is bow-shaped (the chord above the arc below), swollen in the 

 belly, flexed forward and quite straight aft. In transverse- 

 vertical section it is rounded and flattened beneath, the flattened 

 area being about six inches broad, and extending along the central 

 third of the vessel. Aft from this the tapering sides are flattened 

 to meet in a straight sloping keel which over-hangs the water and 

 rises aft. The bows are very sharp and hollow, with a fine slender 

 run aft, the stem is clipper-shaped, the cut-water is one foot long 

 and overhangs four inches, when floating empty the fore foot just 

 touches water. 



Upon this hull is built up the top side planking, which, in the 

 specimen under consideration is on the starboard side of one piece 

 twelve feet four inches in length and eight inches in greatest depth ; 

 on the port side it is in two pieces, fourteen feet in length, and 

 nine inches in greatest depth ; both are an inch thick, adzed level 

 to the deck above and sinuous below to follow the irregular curves 

 of the hull. To the hull this planking is attached by a series of 

 lashings placed at intervals of from four to ten inches. The 

 lashings, consisting always of the flat sinnet braid called 

 " kafa," are passed four times through holes bored half an inch 

 within the edge, and knotted at each pair of holes, never being 

 carried along from pair to pair. Where on the port side two 

 planks join, a triangular lashing attaches each to each and to the 

 hull. I have no reliable information of the composition and 

 application of the caulking used in the seams.* 



The Tahitians caulked their canoes with the husk of coconut 

 and gum of breadfruit ;f the Penrhyn Islanders stopped holes 

 and seams with coconut husk steeped in water and pounded like 

 flax ;j and the Solomon Islanders used a kind of vegetable putty 

 from the nut of Parinarium laurinum. 



* Finsch op. cit., pi. vi., fig. 5, figures a caulking-tool from the 

 Louieiades. 



t Ellis loc. cit., i., p. 156. 



J Lament loc. cit., p. 152. * 



Woodford loc. cit., p. 158; and Somrnerville Journ. Anthrop. Inst., 

 xxvi., 1897, p. 370. 



