a flat-bottomed boat was a very
obvious improvement, and such vessels were probably the immediate
forerunners of ships.

It is usual to refer to Noah's ark as the oldest ship of which there is
any authentic record. Since, however, Egypt has been systematically
explored, pictures of vessels have been discovered immensely older than
the ark--that is to say, if the date usually assigned to the latter
(2840 B.C.) can be accepted as approximately correct; and, as we shall
see hereafter (p. 25), there are vessels _now in existence in Egypt
which were built_ about this very period. The ark was a vessel of such
enormous size that the mere fact that it was constructed argues a very
advanced knowledge and experience on the part of the contemporaries of
Noah. Its dimensions were, according to the biblical version, reckoning
the cubit at eighteen inches; length, 450 feet; breadth, 75 feet; and
depth, 45 feet. If very full in form its "registered tonnage" would have
been nearly 15,000. According to the earlier Babylonian version, the
depth was equal to the breadth, but, unfortunately, the figures of the
measurements are not legible.

It has been sometimes suggested that the ark was a huge raft with a
superstructure, or house, built on it, of the dimensions given above.
There does not, however, appear to be the slightest reason for
concurring with this suggestion. On the contrary, the biblical account
of the structure of the ark is so detailed, that we have no right to
suppose that the description of the most important part of it, the
supposed raft, to which its power of floating would have been due, would
have been omitted. Moreover, the whole account reads like the
description of a ship-shaped structure.

SHIPBUILDING IN EGYPT.

The earliest information on the building of ships is found, as might be
expected, on the Egyptian tombs and monuments. It is probable that the
valley of the Nile was also the first land bordering on the
Mediterranean in which ships, as distinguished from more elementary
craft, were constructed. Everything is in favour of such a supposition.
In the first place, the country was admirably situated, geographically,
for the encouragement of the art of navigation, having seaboards on two
important inland seas which commanded the commerce of Europe and Asia.
In the next place, the habitable portion of Egypt consisted of a long
narrow strip of densely peopled, fertile territory, bordering a great
navigable r