tical test of _use_
is applied, such extremely light wooden boats have always
proved, and will continue to prove, failures, as here this
quality is only _one_ of a number which combine to make the boat
serviceable. A wooden shell whose hull weighs twenty-two pounds,
honest weight, is a very fragile, short-lived affair. A paper
shell of the same dimensions, and of the same weight, will last
as long, and do as much work, as a wooden one whose hull turns
the beam at thirty pounds.

"An instance of their remarkable strength is shown in the
following case. In the summer of 1870, a single shell, while
being rowed at full speed, with the current, on one of our
principal rivers, was run into the stone abutment of a bridge.
The bow struck squarely on the obstacle, and such was the
momentum of the mass that the oarsman was thrown directly
through the flaring bow of the cockpit into the river. Witnesses
of the accident who were familiar with wooden shells declared
that the boat was ruined; but, after a careful examination, only
the bow-tip was found to be twisted in a spiral form, and the
washboard broken at the point by the oarsman as he passed
between the sides. Two dollars covered the cost of repair. Had
it been a wooden shell the shock would have crushed its stem and
splintered the skin from the bow to the waist."

[Illustration: ROB ROY CANOE.]

Old and cautious seamen tried to dissuade me from contracting with the
Messrs. Waters for the building of a stout paper canoe for my journey.
Harvard College had not adopted this "new-fangled notion" at that time,
and Cornell had only begun to think of attempting to out-row other
colleges at Saratoga by using paper boats. The Centennial year of the
independence of the United States, 1876, settled all doubts as to the
value of the result of the years of toil of the inventors of the paper
boat. During the same year the incendiary completed his revengeful work
by burning the paper-boat manufactory at Troy. The loss was a heavy one;
but a few weeks later these unflinching men were able to record the
following victories achieved that single season by their boats.

The races won by the paper boats were:

The Intercollegiate Championship:
Freshmen and University.

The International Championship at Saratoga:
Singles, Doubles, and F