Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 9, 2025
They were far too heavy for me to lift, so I had to roll them into place by an improvised system of skids. Construction was a toilsome work; I was not skilled at it, I handled my ax awkwardly, and squandered much energy in "lost motion." But how I sang and shouted at the task! Never could Kit Carson nor any other pioneer have exulted at his building as I did!
Benjamin Selby alone held stubbornly aloof. One evening the loaded boats came in at sunset. Benjamin sprang from his as it bumped against the skids, and ran up the path. At the corner of his fish-house he stopped and stood quite still, looking at Braithwaite and Mary Stella, who were standing by the rough picket fence of the pasture land.
Not far away stands a grove of trees alleged to have sprung from the Tainui's skids. Certainly Sir James Hector, the first scientific authority in the Colony, finding that these trees grow spontaneously nowhere else in New Zealand, named them Pomaderris Tainui.
When Molly and Fabian had travoyed the log to the skidway, they drew it with a bump across the two parallel skids, and left it there to be rolled to the top of the pile. Then Mike McGovern and Bob Stratton and Jim Gladys took charge of it. Mike and Bob were running the cant-hooks, while Jim stood on top of the great pile of logs already decked.
On the 10th of August, with such cheers as the island never heard before or since, the single-master was launched from the skids and named the St. Peter. Cannon balls and cartridges were thrown in bottom as ballast. Luckily, eight hundred pounds of meal had been reserved for the return voyage, and Steller had salted down steaks of whale meat and sea-cow.
"Give it up," says I. "Have you tried the Zoo?" "He-haw!" says he, with the stops all out and a forced draft on. "That's a good one, that is! But we haven't much time and we're looking for Skid. Where do you keep him?" "Say," says I, "we've got a lot of freaks on tap; but we're just out of Skids. Anything else do?" Then she comes to the front. "Don't be such a silly, Dicky!" says she.
Shields, an Englishman, in the employment of Russia, was to act as shipbuilder; and Baranof sent the men assigned for the work up to Sunday Harbor on the west side of Prince William Sound, where heavy forests would supply timber and the tide-rush help to launch the vessel from the skids. There were no saws in the settlement. Planks had to be hewn out of logs. Iron, there was none.
Walter, do you rig the pump, and Bob, do you help him, and the rest of you set to and bale. Be smart, now. There are two skids and a bucket, or use your hats. Anyhow, the boat must be cleared." He spoke deliberately, not to alarm us, but at the same time we all saw that there was no time to be lost. Walter and I now got the pump to work, while the rest set to and baled away with might and main.
Notches were cut in the ends, and a block was laid crosswise, where the ends lapped, and then another tier was laid on the cross pieces, till the fence was high enough. To roll up the top logs, they would lay long poles, called skids, one end on the top of the logs, and the other on the ground, and roll up the logs on these.
This was the first ship built on the northwest coast. Gray himself later built the second. Amid salvos of cannon from the Lady Washington, the new fur vessel was launched from her skids; and in her honor September 19 was observed as a holiday, Meares and Douglas, the two English captains, entertaining Gray and his officers.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking