58 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



Noticing the picture of a steamboat on the under 

 side of it, the party inquired its age ; the polite and 

 obliging shopkeeper blandly informed the seeker after 

 information that the dish was " one hundred and twenty 

 years old." Shade of Fulton, come forth ! This, how- 

 ever, was an exceptional case (if true), for as a general 

 thing those who sell bric-k-brac are intelligent persons. 



Camels. 



These queer crafts were nothing more nor less than 

 a huge floating dry-dock, propelled by steam, and built 

 for the purpose of lifting loaded ships over the bar at 

 the mouth of the harbor. 



Joseph B. Macy, Esq., has kindly furnished the com- 

 piler with the following facts in relation to the camels : 



The Nantucket camels were built as two separate 

 vessels, like sections of a dry -dock. The inner side of 

 each was concave, to tit as nearly as possible the form 

 of a ship's bottom. These two pieces were held to- 

 gether by fifteen chains that passed obliquely down 

 through one camel under the keel of the ship, and 

 up through the other, and were, when occasion re- 

 quired, hove tight by thirty windlasses. 



Each camel had a separate rudder for steering, and 

 each of course its own propeller at the stern, and its 

 own engine. When a ship arrived at the outer bar, the 

 camels under favorable conditions of weather could 

 steam out to her at the rate, perhaps, of two knots an 

 hour. Arrived at the right position, they were filled 

 and sunk by opening the water gates fitted for that 

 purpose. The ship was then hauled into her berth, the 

 chains hove tight by means of the windlasses before 



