The plank of which these vessels are constructed, is made by splitting a tree, with the grain, into as many thin pieces as they can. They first fell the tree with a kind of hatchet, or adze, made of a tough greenish kind of stone, very dexterously fitted into a handle; it is then cut into such lengths as are required for the plank, one end of which is heated till it begins to crack, and then with wedges of hard wood they split it down: some of these planks are two feet broad, and from 15 to 20 feet long. The sides are smoothed with adzes of the same materials and construction, but of a smaller size. Six or eight men are sometimes at work upon the same plank together, and, as their tools presently lose their edge, every man has by him a cocoa nut-shell filled with water, and a flat stone, with which he sharpens his adze almost every minute. These planks are generally brought to the thickness of about an inch, and are afterwards fitted to the boat with the same exactness that would be expected from an expert joiner. To fasten these planks together, holes are bored with a piece of bone that is fixed into a stick for that purpose, a use to which our nails were afterwards applied with great advantage, and through these holes a kind of plaited cordage is passed, so as to hold the planks strongly together: the seams are caulked with dried rushes, and the whole outside of the vessel is paid with a

Voyaging Accounts