Bark (boat)

“ Some boys, more fortunate than others, were from time to time possessed of birch-bark canoes—small ones. Of all the craft that ever floated, the birch-bark comes nearer being the ideal boat than any other. So light is it, that it may be carried on the head and shoulders for miles without great fatigue; and 24 it sits on the water like a whiff of foam—a veritable fairy craft. It was the custom of the boys who owned these little "birches" to shove them off the sand with a run, and when they were clear of the land to jump over the end, and standing erect, paddle away like the wind. ”

“ So he took a large flat piece of hemlock bark, which he found upon the ground, and began tearing off strips of birch bark from the old tree, and piling them upon it.
“What are you going to do?” said Lucy.
“O, I am going to play steam-boat on fire,” said he; and he took up the piece of bark with the little pile of combustibles upon it, and carried it down to the edge of the brook. Then he went back and got his torch stick, and put a fresh piece of birch bark in the split end, and lighted it, and then came back to the brook, walking slowly lest his torch should go out. ”

“ A cut is made close to the end of each cross-bar, and one half way between each bar, which is generally sufficient to allow the bark to be bent up smoothly. As the bark is bent up, the large stakes are slipped back in the holes which they occupied before, and the tops of each opposite pair are connected with a strip of cedar bark which keeps the stakes perfectly perpendicular. ”

“ CHAPTER V BIRCH BARK MERCHANTS Away over on Katson's Hill six high school boys, stripped to their undershirts and trousers, were toiling hard, drenched in perspiration and with hands considerably the worse for their hard work.
"What we're finding out is that it's one thing to strip bark for fun, and quite another thing to take it off in pieces large enough for a boat-builder," Dick Prescott declared. ”

“ Adventures of James Wyatt, Written by Himself,” 1755
“We were three hours after we left the ship before we got within musket-shot of the bark. Our master ask’d us if we were all willing to board her. We answered, one and all, we were. We saw twelve men ashore, and made directly towards them. Our master said, ‘My boys, the bark’s our own, for these men belong’d to her, but have left her; let us give them one [Pg 109] volley, and then board the bark.’ We had two brass blunderbusses, mounted on swivels, in the bow of the boat. ”

“ If, however, he wants a canoe in which he goes fishing, and which, in consequence, must be of a stronger make, he still adheres to the stringy bark as his material, though he takes more care in the manufacture. The bark is bent, like the birch bark of the North American Indians, by moisture and heat ”

“ Notwithstanding the size and capacity of this craft, it had been carried down to the beach on the shoulders of Massan and Dick Prince, who now stood at its bow and stern, preventing it with their paddles from rubbing its frail sides against the wharf; for although the bark is tough, and will stand a great deal of tossing in water and plunging among rapids, it cannot sustain the slightest blow from a rock or other hard substance without being cracked, or having the gum which covers the seams scraped off. ”

“ All this time, we on the Point could see, with increasing fears, that the hope of the yacht holding together till reached by the rescuers was but a faint one. Each monster wave that rolled in lifted it from the rocks and left it to fall back with an irresistible force midst spray and foam, that constantly wholly hid it from our sight; and even before the boat started, portions of the wreck were being tossed about on the sea, making its passage even more precarious. At one time a group [Pg 176] of human beings was seen on the deck clinging to some cordage ”

“ These feeble vessels of bark will carry twenty-five pieces of goods, each weighing ninety pounds, exclusive of the necessary provision and baggage for the crew of five or six men, amounting in the whole to about 3,300 pounds weight. This great lading they annually carry between the depots and the posts in the interior; and it rarely happens that any accidents occur, if they are managed by experienced bowmen and steersmen, on whose skill the safety of the canoe entirely depends in the rapids and difficult places. Its weight is estimated at 300 pounds, exclusive of the poles and oars. ”

“ If he is only going to cross the river by himself, he simply ties the bark together at the ends, paddles across, and abandons the piece of bark on the other side, knowing that he can easily provide another. If it is to carry another besides himself, he stops up the tied ends with clay; but if it is to be permanently employed, he sews up the ends more carefully, and keeps it in shape by cross-pieces, thereby producing a vessel which closely resembles the bark canoe of North America (Wood, Nat. Hist. of Man, ii. 103) . ”

“ But besides these, within recent years have been unearthed most interesting little wooden model boats. These are of two kinds, those made in the form of a funeral bark, and those which are models of the actual ships that sailed up the Nile at the time they were made. In the former the dead man is seen lying under a canopy or open deck-house with or without rowers. These funeral barks, not being sailing boats, are only of interest in pursuing our present subject as showing us the general lines and shape of the hull, together with the steering and rowing arrangements. ”

“ She is said to be a very swift bark, and yet she has great carrying capacity."
"Will you please explain to me just what a bark is?" said Roger. "I must confess I am rather dumb on nautical matters."
"A bark is a vessel with three masts. The front mast, or foremast, as sailors call it, and the main, or middle, mast are rigged as a ship, that is, with regular yardarms and sails. The back mast, called the mizzen mast, is rigged schooner fashion, that is, with a swinging boom."
"That's plain enough. Hurrah for the Stormy Petrel! Dave, we'll be full-fledged sailors before we know it." ”

“ The forecastle was deserted to a man, and the hillock of freight was again darkly seen peopled with crouching human forms. Just then the bark which had so long lain in a state of complete rest slowly and heavily raised its bows, as if laboring under its great and unusual burthen, while a sluggish swell passed beneath its entire length, lifting the whole mass, foot by foot, and passing away by the stern, to cast itself on the shores of Vaud. ”

“ These large steamboats, having a barge or barges in tow, lashed to them loosely, as they must be, are often brought against their sides with much force. They land for the purposes of their ordinary business at every ten or twelve miles of their voyage at the towns and landings on the river, and in doing so must necessarily impinge with more or less force against the barge which is between the boat and the shore. These are the daily and hourly external forces to which the barge is subjected in the ordinary course of navigation. ”

“ The pieces of bark, which had been sewed together, were fitted neatly over this frame, and wattap was wrapped over and over the gunwale and passed through bark and ribs. Next to the bark, and held in place by the ribs, strips of cedar, shaved as thin as the blade of a knife, were placed to form sheathing. The last process was the gumming of the seams to make them water-tight. The gum, softened by heat, was applied, and the seams carefully gone over with a live coal held in a split stick, while, with the thumb of the other hand, the canoe maker pressed in the sticky substance. ”

“ Burke went.
Some days later I was forward on the forecastle deck, ensconced against the big canvas- covered anchor, leaning over the side and watching the foam about the cut-water and the up-spurted coveys of sudden flying fish, darting out of the waves, at the edge of the bark's shadows and veering erratically in their unpredictable flights. Burke, barefoot and chewing a large quid, was going about with a tar-bucket, swabbing mats and other such devices. He approached me.
"Mr. Ferris, Sor," he said, "ye wudn't have a bit of washin' a man cud du for ye? ”

“ In selecting a birch bark canoe the most important thing to look after is to see that the bottom is all one piece without projecting knots or mended cracks. Many canoes have bottoms made of two pieces. These when grounded almost invariably spring a leak at the seam, for the simple reason that it takes very little to scrape off the slightly projecting gum. On the other hand, a bottom of one good piece of bark will stand an extraordinary amount of raking and bumping without being any the worse. ”

“ He was not one to be content with devotional exercises and a household of dancing goats and cats. His crew replied that they were anxious to build some sort of craft if he would show them how, and accordingly they pulled the wreck of the Speedwell apart and piled the timbers on the beach.
Keel-blocks were set up, and they began to put together what they called a bark. It was to be only forty feet long, with a depth of seven feet, by no means large enough to hold a hundred men, but material was difficult to obtain and skilled labor scarce. ”

“ The bark, which is two to three feet long and one to three inches broad, is then laid on a beam of wood six inches long and nine inches broad and thick, which is separated from the ground about an inch by bits of wood, so it may vibrate. Placing the bark before her, the woman beats with her right hand, and moves the bark to and fro with her left, so as to beat it evenly, using the grooved side of the mallet first and then the smooth one. Women generally beat alternately and early in the morning. ”

“ By occasionally backing the screw, we ran within fifty feet of the wreck, and I could hear the roar of the gale through the standing rigging of the bark, and the heavy pounding of the billows against her side.
"Steamer ahoy!" shouted a man on the taffrail of the vessel.
"On board the bark!" replied Washburn, on the topgallant forecastle. "What is the condition of the vessel?"
"Our forefoot is gone, and we are stove through forward. She is full of water," replied the man. "She is grinding on the reef, and will go to pieces in a few hours." ”

“ The larger the expanse of water over which the wind passes, the longer is the sea, and the easier is it for the ship to ride on it. Those of Lake Michigan, however, were quite long enough for a bark canoe, and glad enough were both Margery and Dorothy when they found their two little vessels lashed together, and wearing an air of more stability than was common to them. Le Bourdon's sail was first spread, and it produced an immediate relief from the washing of the waves. The drift of a bark canoe, in a smart blow, is considerable, it having no hold on the water to resist it ”

“ The mast to which I clung was swaying up and down, as the bark rolled in the billows, and I felt that I had really entered upon the sea swashes of a sailor.
The wind increased in fury every moment; and though the furling of the light sails eased the vessel for a time, she soon labored heavily again. Two men were required at the wheel, and the swash of the sea came over the bulwarks in tons. At eight bells all hands were called. The courses had been hauled up, and now a reef was put in the fore and main topsails. But the bark still held her course to the south-east. ”

“ The two men cheerfully crawled over the side, but instead of giving them a glass of grog apiece, Captain Jones ordered them forward to turn to with the rest of his crew, and with his own hand let go the line which held the barque's boat to the Rose. Sail was then trimmed, and in less than three hours the barque was hull down, though still in pursuit of the Rose. ”

“ The other barks were of foreign structure, and the mariners seemed to be all foreigners; but the many passengers in each of them were all Englishmen, and landsmen besides; for they had all been very sea-sick, and were now very impatient to get their feet upon dry land.
The first that landed from the foremost bark was a tall, robust, and handsome man, dressed as Saxon noblemen and warriors were wont to dress before the incoming of the ill fashions of Normandie. ”

“ They had read together the thrilling story of the flight from the English barks, of the wreck in the lonely creek, and the description of the treasure up to the point where the missing pages spoiled the worthwhileness of the manuscript.
“That galleon must have been pretty big,” Jim had said. “How big is an English bark?”
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“A bark is a three-masted, square-rigged vessel. The mizzenmast is fore-and-aft rigged, if I remember my history correctly,” the professor replied. ”

“ BARILLA. An alkali procured by burning Salsola kali and other sea-shore plants. It forms a profitable article of Mediterranean commerce. (See Kelp.)
BARK. The exterior covering of vegetable bodies, many of which are useful in making paper, cordage, cloth, dyes, and medicines.
BARK, or Barque [from barca, Low Latin] . A general name given to small ships, square-sterned, without head-rails; it is, however, peculiarly appropriated by seamen to a three-masted vessel with only fore-and-aft sails on her mizen-mast.—Bark-rigged. Rigged as a bark, with no square sails on the mizen-mast. ”

“ Barker heard him ask. “I have blankets and can sleep on the deck.”
“Walking is good, on you can ride on a log, the water is fine.” “Not another soul,” replied the captain. “Get off the gang-plank, you’re in the way.”
“But I must get to St. Louis,” the man argued.
“I don’t care what you must do,” the captain replied gruffly. “Walking is good, or you can ride on a log, the water is fine. Now get off the gang-plank. This boat leaves in five minutes.”
“Hicks,” whispered Tatanka. “Bad man Hicks,” as the man slouched back up town. “I’d like to throw my ax at him.” ”