egister_.
This paper wants contributors, and the Club wants members. Sir Harris's
address is 1119 Mt. Vernon St.

Questions and Answers.

W. H. LEGGETT.--What you have made is a truss, not slings at all. Slings
are chains running from a mast-head cap down through the hounds, and are
used to support a lower yard which is fastened to the mast by a truss,
and is not intended to be raised or lowered. A yard which is to be
hoisted and lowered should be secured to the mast by a parral of
leather, and should be raised by lifts and halyards. (2.) Clew-lines
lead from the deck through a clew-block under the yard, and through the
clewline block in the sail, the standing part being taken between the
head of the sail and the yard, and made fast to the arm of the truss.
(3.) Lead the braces to the main-top. (4.) Your dimensions are not good,
unless your draught is to be increased by a heavy lead keel. Your
proportion of more than five beams to the length is bad. She ought to
have more beam--say, sixteen inches. The capstan ought to be on the
forecastle-deck. The dimensions of spars are good.

FRANK J. SMYTH.--Such a set of rules as you ask for would occupy too
much space in this paper. The racing rules of the American Model Yacht
Club were printed in _Forest and Stream_ for November 24, 1894. Send ten
cents and postage to the office of that paper, 318 Broadway, and get a
copy.

HERBERT ARNOLD.--Dimensions of a good dory would be sixteen feet long on
the bottom, seventeen feet over all, three feet six inches wide on the
bottom amidships, four feet eight inches wide at the gunwale amidships,
and two feet deep. You could not have a safer boat in any waters.

[Illustration: STAMPS]

This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin
collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question
on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should
address Editor Stamp Department.

[Illustration]

Quite a number of inquiries have come to me as to what is "embossing" or
"grilling." Both words mean the same thing in philately. Above are two
illustrations from the 1867-68 stamps. It seems at one time the
government feared that cancelled postage-stamps could be used a second
time. They therefore adopted (in 1867) a method of impressing or
embossing on the backs of the stamps after they had been gummed a series
of small squares, each square having a sharp point. The idea was t