ertheless they must be
correct in the main particulars.

Homer, who lived 1000 B.C., gives, in his "Odyssey," an account of
ship-building in his time, to which antiquarians attach much importance,
as showing the ideas then prevalent in reference to geography, and the
point at which the art of ship-building had then arrived. Of course due
allowance must be made for Homer's tendency to indulge in hyperbole.

Ulysses, king of Ithaca, and deemed on of the wisest Greeks who went to
Troy, having been wrecked upon an island, is furnished by the nymph
Calypso with the means of building a ship,--that hero being determined
to seek again his native shore and return to his home and his faithful
spouse Penelope.

"Forth issuing thus, she gave him first to wield
A weighty axe, with truest temper steeled,
And double-edged; the handle smooth and plain,
Wrought of the clouded olive's easy grain;
And next, a wedge to drive with sweepy sway;
Then to the neighbouring forest led the way.
On the lone island's utmost verge there stood
Of poplars, pines, and firs, a lofty wood,
Whose leafless summits to the skies aspire,
Scorched by the sun, or seared by heavenly fire
(Already dried). These pointing out to view,
The nymph just showed him, and with tears withdrew.

"Now toils the hero; trees on trees o'erthrown
Fall crackling round, and the forests groan;
Sudden, full twenty on the plain are strewed,
And lopped and lightened of their branchy load.
At equal angles these disposed to join,
He smoothed and squared them by the rule and line.
(The wimbles for the work Calypso found),
With those he pierced them and with clinchers bound.
Long and capacious as a shipwright forms
Some bark's broad bottom to outride the storms,
So large he built the raft; then ribbed it strong
From space to space, and nailed the planks along.
These formed the sides; the deck he fashioned last;
Then o'er the vessel raised the taper mast,
With crossing sail-yards dancing in the wind:
And to the helm the guiding rudder joined
(With yielding osiers fenced to break the force
Of surging waves, and steer the steady course).
Thy loom, Calypso, for the future sails
Supplied the cloth, capacious of the gales.
With stays and cordage last he rigged the ship,
And, rolled on levers, launched her on the deep."

The ships of the ancient Greeks and Romans were divided into various
classes, according to th