ptember the winter ended, and the works were again
eagerly commenced. The building of the vessel advanced rapidly, she
was already completely decked over, and all the inside parts of the
hull were firmly united with ribs bent by means of steam, which
answered all the purposes of a mould.

As there was no want of wood, Pencroft proposed to the engineer to
give a double lining to the hull, so as to completely insure the
strength of the vessel.

Harding, not knowing what the future might have in store for them,
approved the sailor's idea of making the craft as strong as possible.
The interior and deck of the vessel was entirely finished towards the
15th of September. For calking the seams they made oakum of dry
seaweed, which was hammered in between the planks; then these seams
were covered with boiling tar, which was obtained in great abundance
from the pines in the forest.

The management of the vessel was very simple. She had from the first
been ballasted with heavy blocks of granite walled up, in a bed of
lime, twelve thousand pounds of which they stowed away.

A deck was placed over this ballast, and the interior was divided into
two cabins; two benches extended along them and served also as
lockers. The foot of the mast supported the partition which separated
the two cabins, which were reached by two hatchways let into the deck.

Pencroft had no trouble in finding a tree suitable for the mast. He
chose a straight young fir, with no knots, and which he had only to
square at the step, and round off at the top. The ironwork of the
mast, the rudder and the hull, had been roughly but strongly forged at
the Chimneys. Lastly, yards, masts, boom, spars, oars, etc., were all
finished by the first week in October, and it was agreed that a trial
trip should be taken round the island, so as to ascertain how the
vessel would behave at sea, and how far they might depend upon her.

During all this time the necessary works had not been neglected. The
corral was enlarged, for the flock of musmons and goats had been
increased by a number of young ones, who had to be housed and fed. The
colonists had paid visits also to the oyster bed, the warren, the coal
and iron mines, and to the till then unexplored districts of the Far
West forest, which abounded in game. Certain indigenous plants were
discovered, and those fit for immediate use, contributed to vary the
vegetable stores of Granite House.

They were a species of ficoide, so