Publisher's Synopsis
No one knows who first invented boats. Probably they were used by primitive man long before he discovered how to use bows and arrows or had even learned to chip stones into simple tools and weapons. But those early boats were not boats as we know them today, for it has taken untold centuries for mankind to improve and develop boats to their present state of perfection. It was a natural and easy matter for a savage to straddle a floating log and, thus supported, cross some pond or stream, and when some member of the tribe discovered that two logs lashed together were more comfortable and less likely to roll over and dump their passengers into the water than a single log, he no doubt felt as if he had made a marvelous invention and was probably looked upon as a prehistoric Fulton by his fellowmen. Later on some man found that a hollowed log was more buoyant and stable than an ordinary tree trunk and from this crude beginning rude dugout canoes were developed. Even today many races have never progressed beyond the hollowed-log state of boat-building and dugouts, forty or fifty feet in length and capable of carrying great weights, are in daily use in many lands. Some of these are very crude, heavy craft, while others are beautifully made, are light in weight and are very speedy and seaworthy.
