Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-07-24
NOah's B0at-NOt so Much of Craft,
After All.

Taking the cublt at eighteen inches,
the ark was $50 feet long, IS feet wide,
and IS feet deep, and would register
about 10, 200 tons, if measured as sail
ing ship, or about $4,000 tons if meas
ured as a steamer, by British rules.
The ark was truly the first Great East
ern, and was built to save life, but it
was inferior in tonnage and dimensions
to the modern Great Eastern built in
London, whose purpose was to save
money. The woodeh ark of Noah ac-
compllshed its purpose, but the iron ark
of Brunei failed signally. Noah's ark
had three decks, and was divided into
numerous compartments bylongitudinal
and transverse bulkheads for the safety
and order of its occupants. To this
day the Chinese, the Oldest people
having knowledge of the arts correlative
with navigation, use compartments in
their vessels.
The ark was built of gopher wood,
species OF evergreen timber resembling
the pine III length and strength of trunk,
and the white cedar in ightness and
at the time of the food growing abund-
antly around the headwaters f the Eu-
pirates gopher tree proper per-
ished in the deluge). The trees for the
timbers of the ark were, many of them,
cut out by the root, and wrought to
form with tools of iron in the forests of
Northern Mesorot amia. When duly
prepared, all the timbers were foated
III RATS down stream, and landed in time
of freshets on meadow-grou in front
of the Noachian dwelling, where they
were tested for integrity, and then COM
bined in the wonder-exciting structure.
The design for the ark was on this
wise: For strength it had depth for
stability it had breadth, and for capacity
it had length, and these qualities were
perfectly proportional. In model it was
all that great carrier could be-chest-
like, with lines straight and angles
square, but the bottom and top were
elhptlcal IN outline, presenting convex
1ty to the earth and to the sky The
central keel and midship floor were first
built on blOcks-the floor crossing the
keel. Thus was formed the first cross.
il which sign alone can portion of
humanity be saved
! The ends of the keel and floor were
bear weight, when they were blocked in
position. The other keels were then
laid and the floors put across. The tim
bering was solid throughout. Every
floor timber was in one length. and had
its roof shaped as knee to connect it
with top timber, which was also in one
length. Every top timber meeting a
floor end having no knee, itself had a
knee-end for the purpose of securely
joining the floor, so that all the floors
and the alternate top-timbers had root
knees down at their ends.
One pair of doors and two pair OF top
| timbers made double-timbered frame,
in which the floors were seventy-five feet
long and the top-timbers forty-tive feet
on the average. The frames were Sc
curely dove-tailed, doweled, and cement
ed together with melted bitumen, which
abounded in ne lakelets of the sur
rounding country. When laid across
the keels, and fastened thereto, the ends
of the floors, with the side-keels under
them, were raised to a catenary curve of
| tension, the same as was done with the
unchecked and midship floor, which
served to begin the bottom of the ark.
Thus sprung into position, the bottom
OF the ark resembled the sheet sup
ported at four corners that was seen by
Paul III vision ages after the ark was
built. The bottom being duly formed
and blocked, the top-timber were next
erected, with the beams for the decks.
and every room had its own root-knee at
at one end for attachment to the frames
and the beams alternated knee-ends with
each other, the same as the floors did.
and being laid close together, the beams
constituted the decks, without plankng.
When the keels, foor-timbers, top
timbers, and beams were erected, then
the bottom was covered both outside
and inside with logs of great length,
laid IN bltumen and they were pinned
and dovetailed to the floors with pins
and dovetails of shittim wood. Longi-
tudinal and cross bulkheads were next
bu 1t in the lower hold, and in the lower
between-decks, the former being three
in number, and the latter nine, making
forty compartments in each of those
stories, corresponding to the forty DAYS
and forty nights that the water poured
from the windows of the heavens.
The ark grounded on Mount Ararat,
the highest land in that part of Asia. the
more surely to prove that the waters ha6
covered the whole earth, and the more
certainly to cast it away where it might
never more be found by the profane Of
the world. 1t is now in a good state o.
preservation, but lying under an eterna
mantle of snow, hundreds of feet deep
at an altitude of 1900 feet above The
level of the sea. Ever since the hood
dried up, the climate of Armenia ha.
been colder, and snow always covers the
top of Ararat, rendering it impossible
for any of Noah's descendants to go VI
and find the ark-the snow line defend,
the approach to the sacred relic as tn,
tree of life was defended by the flaming
sword in the Garden of Eden. -Nautica
Gazette.
Startling Figures