This is a book that has fascinated me ever since I first discovered it several years ago. I originally had purchased the plates from Mystic Seaport (which has reprinted that portion of the book) when I lived in New York. The plates are wonderful to look at, and a very small portion of the accompanying text (with some offsets) was included in the Mystic reprint. However, I just knew I was missing out on a lot...
Shortly after arriving in Wisconsin, I found a copy of the text in the public library. Aha! Sort of like a kid at Christmas, I eagerly tore into it. The rest, as they say, is history. The only problem I have with the book is that I can't decide which canoe to build first!
Some comments on my HTML version:
- I have tried to maintain the original flavor of the text as much as possible. Thus, some of the spelling may appear archaic, and some modern conventions are not followed. The exception is that I have merged the plates into the text at the appropriate places, in an attempt to make it easier to follow. The WWW is not a text friendly medium, but I have striven to make it as painless as possible. There is 1.26 megabytes of information here, but again, I have tried to make it easier to read by breaking it up into smaller sections.
- Dimensions given in the text will typically follow the form 3-5/8 in., where it would be read "three and five-eights inches". In the offsets tables two forms will be found. In addition to the previous mentioned format, offsets may be give as 227 for "twenty-two and seven-eights inches" or 1 54, for 1 foot, 5 and four-eights inches".
- In a very few places I have added my own comments or corrected obvious errors. This will be found contained within brackets, [like this].
- I strongly recommend purchasing the reproduction plates from Mystic Seaport. I have, from neccesity, greatly reduced the size of the images, and at best they will only serve as a visual aid.
Enjoy!
If you have any questions or comments, send mail to me (Dan Miller).
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