Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/134

with cross-sticks, a most comfortable bed at night can be made of hay by heaping it under the canvas cover in sufficient quantities.

The "Crusoe" raft has this great advantage over all boats: you may take a long trip down the river, allowing the current to bear you along, using the sweeps only to assist the man at the helm (rear sweep); then, after your excursion is finished, you can abandon the raft and return by steamboat or cars.

There can be but few boys who are not familiar with that large and useful tribe of flat-bottomed, perpendicular-sided boats called "scows." These crafts are used as coal barges, lighters, flat-boats, sail-boats, and row-boats; but it is only to the construction of the last named class that this chapter will be devoted.

To build a scow-shaped row-boat is not a difficult feat, even for a boy; and when it is finished he will find it to be a very convenient boat, roomy, and not hard to row.

The material necessary consists of eight or ten three-quarter-inch pine boards, one one-inch board, some fivepenny nails, and about a half pound of wrought-iron nails of the same size as the ones just mentioned.

A saw, a plane, and a sharp hatchet are requisite in the way of tools. Other tools, if not absolutely necessary, should not on that account be ignored, as they may come in very handy at times.

When selecting the lumber for the boat, pick out those pieces which are free from large knots and other blemishes. Reserve two of the best boards for the sides, and let them measure 11 feet in length and 12 inches in width when trimmed. Measuring toward the centre, mark a point 2½ feet from each end of one of the side boards upon the edge selected for