50 



G. Elliot Smith on 



shipbuilders' skill and ingenuity, were able to make their way to 

 the East and wander, stage by stage, as far as the Pacific Coasts 

 of America, they took with them, not only the large vessels in 

 which they actually made their journeys, but also the recollection 

 of all these more primitive types of vessels which were still in 

 use in their homeland. Thus we still find, scattered in certain 

 localities along the whole route fi-om the Red Sea to America, a 

 great variety of primitive vessels, reed-floats, the double canoe, 

 the catamaran, " sewed boats," rib-less boats, and many other 

 primitive kinds of ships, the prototypes of which were being used 

 upon the Nile long before the Pyramids were built. 



In my article on " Ships as Evidence of the Migrations of 

 Early Culture"^ I have given some of the facts in substantiation 

 of this claim, and since then Professor Breasted (Op. cit. supra) 

 who apparently was not acquainted with, or rather does not refer 

 to, my essay, has added most important corroboi-ation. 



In some of the tombs and temples of the Old Egyptian 

 Kingdom we find pictures carved forty-four centuries ago, depict- 

 ing the earliest known seagoing ships and the methods of their 

 construction. 



Fig. 4. — The most ancient representation of a sea-going ship (Egypt, 

 Vlth Dynasty, 2600 B.C. ) — After Assmann. Note the two limbed A-shaped 

 mast lowered on to a special support at the stern. 



In my former essay I discussed the significance of the facts 

 revealed by the methods of early boat-building. On the present 



^ Journal of the Maiichenfer Eijyptiau and Oriental Society, 1916. 



