64

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

backed by the information of other authors of equal authenticity, were evenfishing boats destitute of it.'

The brackets bolted to the sides and beams reached to the utmost extremityof the latter, the upper row, or row-lock ports being placed at the edge of them.The brackets, or, as they rather ought to be called, the shoulder pieces, weresupported by struts and under-props bolted to the side of the vessel, and passingobliquely to the extremity of the shoulder piece. Athenaeus affirms, that in theship built by Hiero, these supporters were each nine feet long, occupying thewhole space of the side from the upper tier ports : they contributed very mate-rially to the decoration and beauty of the vessel, the upper part being in generalcuriously carved, so as to represent the heads or busts of men, and serving ascaryatides, or supporters, acquired from thence the significant term or appel-lation of Atlantes, derived from Atlas, the king of Libya, who has been alreadynoticed, and is well known in the heathen mythology, as having derived, fromhis skill in astronomy, the title of supporter to the heavens.

In respect to the upper or seventh tier of oars, which subject it is necessaryshould now be resumed, the row-ports, it has been already said, were nothigher than those of the sixth, which were worked under the beams of thedeck. T he persons who worked them sat, according to the opinion of Vossius,not above the beams, but on the same level with those who sat highest on thesixth tier. As his explanation of this part of his system is perhaps least intel-ligible of the whole, it will be best to give it as nearly as possible in his ownwords. See Fig. 3. A B represent the transom beams planked over from Eas far in board as D, and from F to C : the row-ports of the sixth tier are atA and B, (that is to say, in the side and work under the projecting platform);those of the seventh tier are at E and F on the edge of that platform, so that,in consequence of the cambering of the platform, the row-ports both of thesixth and seventh tiers were at an equal distance from the surface of the water,(to wit, about thirteen feet six inches :) the extremity of the handles ofthe sixth tier reached to G and IT, of the seventh to I and K : the seats of theupper rowers reached from K to L, and from I to M, so that there being avacant interspace of seven inches from L to E, and from M to F, similar to thepractice already described with regard to the lower tiers, the length of the oarswas equal to the tier below it, and its purchase was also as great, though, onaccount of the oar working on the outer edge of the platform, the handle did not

reach