inch and a half thick. The operation of
putting them on was tedious, but, when on, the calking was easy. The
outward edges stood slightly open to receive the calking, but the
inner edges were so close that I could not see daylight between them.
All the butts were fastened by through bolts, with screw-nuts
tightening them to the timbers, so that there would be no complaint
from them. Many bolts with screw-nuts were used in other parts of the
construction, in all about a thousand. It was my purpose to make my
vessel stout and strong.

[Illustration: Cross-section of the _Spray_.]

Now, it is a law in Lloyd's that the _Jane_ repaired all out of the
old until she is entirely new is still the _Jane_. The _Spray_ changed
her being so gradually that it was hard to say at what point the old
died or the new took birth, and it was no matter. The bulwarks I built
up of white-oak stanchions fourteen inches high, and covered with
seven-eighth-inch white pine. These stanchions, mortised through a
two-inch covering-board, I calked with thin cedar wedges. They have
remained perfectly tight ever since. The deck I made of
one-and-a-half-inch by three-inch white pine spiked to beams, six by
six inches, of yellow or Georgia pine, placed three feet apart. The
deck-inclosures were one over the aperture of the main hatch, six feet
by six, for a cooking-galley, and a trunk farther aft, about ten feet
by twelve, for a cabin. Both of these rose about three feet above the
deck, and were sunk sufficiently into the hold to afford head-room. In
the spaces along the sides of the cabin, under the deck, I arranged a
berth to sleep in, and shelves for small storage, not forgetting a
place for the medicine-chest. In the midship hold, that is, the space
between cabin and galley, under the deck, was room for provision of
water, salt beef, etc., ample for many months.

The hull of my vessel being now put together as strongly as wood and
iron could make her, and the various rooms partitioned off, I set
about "calking ship." Grave fears were entertained by some that at
this point I should fail. I myself gave some thought to the
advisability of a "professional calker." The very first blow I struck
on the cotton with the calking-iron, which I thought was right, many
others thought wrong. "It'll crawl!" cried a man from Marion, passing
with a basket of clams on his back. "It'll crawl!" cried another from
West Island, when he saw me driving cotton into the sea