78 ALL AFLOAT 



English Lloyd's looked askance at anything not 

 built of oak. Canada tried her own oak ; but it 

 was outclassed by the more slowly growing and 

 sounder English oak. Canada then fell back 

 on tamarac, or ' hackmatac,' as builders called 

 it. This was much more buoyant than oak, 

 and consequently freighted to advantage. But 

 it was a soft wood, and Lloyd's was slow to 

 rate it at its proper worth. Tamarac hulls 

 went sound for twenty years, and sometimes 

 forty, especially when hardwood treenails were 

 used — a treenail being a bolt that did the 

 service of a nail in woodwork or a rivet in steel 

 plating. At first Canadian vessels were only 

 rated Al for seven years, as compared with 

 twelve for those built of English oak. A year 

 was added for hardwood treenails, and another 

 for ' salting on the stocks.' In 1852 Lloyd's 

 sent out its own surveyor, Menzies, who would 

 guarantee work done under his own eye for 

 twenty-five cents a ton ; while Lloyd's, for 

 its part, would give preferential rates to any 

 vessels thus ' built under special survey.' 

 Perhaps Canadian timber is not as lasting as 

 the best European. Certainly it has no such 

 records of longevity ; though there is no 

 reason why Canadian records should not be 

 better than they are in this respect. Few 



