he size of
such ships and barges was reckoned was based on the amount of grain
they were capable of carrying, and this was measured by the _gur_, the
largest measure of capacity. Thus mention is made in the inscriptions of
vessels of five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, and
seventy-five gur capacity. A boat-builder's fee for building a vessel of
sixty gur was fixed at two shekels of silver, and it was proportionately
less for boats of smaller capacity. To ensure that the boat-builder
should not scamp his work, regulations were drawn up to fix on him the
responsibility for unsound work. Thus if a boat-builder were employed to
build a vessel, and he put faulty work into its construction so that it
developed defects within a year of its being launched, he was obliged to
strengthen and rebuild it at his own expense.

* The fourth class of machine for raising water employed in
Mesopotamia at the present day consists of an endless chain
of iron buckets running over a wheel. This is geared by
means of rough wooden cogs to a horizontal wheel, the
spindle of which has long poles fixed to it, to which horses
or cattle are harnessed. The beasts go round in a circle and
so turn the machine. The contrivance is not so primitive as
the three described above, and the iron buckets are of
European importation.

The hire of a boatman was fixed at six gur of corn to be paid him
yearly, but it is clear that some of the larger vessels carried crews
commanded by a chief boatman, or captain, whose pay was probably on
a larger scale. If a man let his boat to a boatman, the latter was
responsible for losing or sinking it, and he had to replace it. A
boatman was also responsible for the safety of his vessel and of any
goods, such as corn, wool, oil, or dates, which he had been hired to
transport, and if they were sunk through his carelessness he had to make
good the loss. If he succeeded in refloating the boat after it had been
sunk, he was only under obligation to pay the owner half its value in
compensation for the damage it had sustained. In the case of a collision
between two vessels, if one was at anchor at the time, the owner of the
other vessel had to pay compensation for the boat that was sunk and its
cargo, the owner of the latter estimating on oath the value of what
had been sunk. Boats were also employed as ferries, and they must have
resembled the primitive form of fer