middle, where the bathers swim, with
lattice-work or perforated boards under them to let in the water without
letting out the bathers. They are decorated with little towers and
flag-staffs, and look very strange indeed when they are being towed to
the city in the early summer to be moored beside a wharf, or when, after
the bathing season is over, they are dragged away to be laid up for the
winter. Our floating docks, upon which all but the very large ships and
steamboats are lifted out of the water to have their hulls painted,
cleaned, or repaired, are made of many boxes joined together. These
boxes sink when full of water, and thus it is possible to steer a vessel
right over them. Then the water is pumped out of the boxes, and the dock
(in reality a cradle rather than a dock) rises, and lifts the vessel up
high and dry so that workmen can walk all around and under her to scrape
off the barnacles that have grown fast to her, or to paint her bottom,
or to sheathe it with copper.

[Illustration: ICE-BARGES IN TOW.]

The barges for carrying cattle and those for carrying ice are just like
the toys that are made for children and called "Noah's Arks." They are
houses built upon strong boat hulls. The ice-barges are always white,
and canvas windmill wheels are forever whirling above them, just as if
they were some new kind of boats made to go by air propellers instead of
wheels or screws in the water. The truth is, of course, that these
canvas wheels work the pumps that pump out the water made by the
constant melting of the ice. But of all the kinds of barges that work in
the New York waters the hay-barges are surely the most interesting.
They are very large, and the houses built upon their hulls are open at
the sides, with only a railing where the walls should be. These are
two-storied houses, and the floors that support hay in the winter are
dancing platforms in the summer. These hay-barges are our picnic boats
also. All winter long, or as long as the waters are unfrozen, they bring
down hay from the Hudson River landings, but in the summer they go out
of that business, and are hired out to Sunday-schools, political clubs,
secret societies, church societies, and the like, to carry picnickers to
what are called the excursion parks that are found along the Hudson
River and the Sound at several hours' distance from the metropolis.
Tug-boats drag these barges to the excursion parks, and the holiday
crowds upon the two open dec