CHAPTER IX

CARDBOARD AND PAPER SHIPS (PLATE IV)

An interesting series of ships can be made of cardboard and paper. These ships can be used to illustrate the history lesson or to illustrate a lesson on the evolution of the ship.

=Materials.= Cardboard of medium thickness (thin cardboard will bend and thick is difficult to cut), white paper--cartridge paper or ordinary exercise paper--and coloured paper or chalks, scissors and pen-knife, ruler.

=The Viking Ship= (Fig. 170). Give the children oblong pieces of cardboard, A B C D, about 8-1/2 inches by 2-1/2 inches. A line, E F, drawn across the middle of the cardboard gives the top of the ship. The ship is then drawn on the cardboard, and the shaded part of the cardboard is cut away. Dragons' or serpents' heads are drawn on paper, cut out and gummed on to the stern and prow (as G and H); a tongue cut from red paper can be added to each dragon. (The 'dragon ships' were, as a rule, the largest, the 'serpent ships' being smaller and better adapted to sailing.) The mast is cut out of cardboard and gummed behind the ship; the sail is cut out of paper and gummed to the mast. The shields are cut out of cardboard and pasted along the sides. The ship may be painted white, blue, red, or any combination of colours; the warriors' shields were also of different colours. The sails were generally in coloured stripes, blue and white or red and white. Masts brown. For teachers who want to be historically accurate the following notes on the viking ship may be useful.

The viking ship (from ninth century on-wards) was clincher-built, caulked with hair, and iron fastened. One ship we know to have been 78 feet long by 15-1/2 feet of extreme breadth; the ships varied in length from 50 to 150 feet. They had from twelve to thirty-five seats for rowers. Generally both ends of the vessel were alike, so that it could be steered from either end by the paddle, which was used everywhere until the invention of the rudder.

Standards and pennants were used, and possibly the two-armed iron anchor (for the Romans used it), so the children can cut out pennants and anchors for their ships.

Children delight in naming their ships and should be given some of the 'real' old names to choose from. These old names generally referred to the figure-head, which was of wood or metal, in the shape of the head of a dragon, deer, bird or other animal--_e.g._ _Dragon_, _Serpent_, _Raven_, _Deer of the Surf_, _Sea-king's Deer_, _Horse of the Sea_, _Sea-bird_, etc. To support the boat two pieces of cardboard are cut and folded, as N P O Q (Fig. 171). The cardboard must be half cut with a pen-knife along the line R S, so that it can be bent easily.

The portion N R P S is gummed to the back of the ship, R S O Q bent at right angles to N P R S forms the support, with corner S T Q cut off, so that the ship tilts a little backward.

=A Phoenician Warship=, 480 B.C. (Fig. 172). This is made, as the viking ship, from oblong A B C D; pieces of paper, E and F, with railings drawn on them, are gummed on each end; a stern ornament, G, is cut out of paper and gummed at one end. (When a vessel was captured in olden days this was kept as a trophy.)

Small circles are drawn along the side of the ship to represent the holes for the oars, or holes may be made in the cardboard and matches or strips of cardboard passed through for oars.

A device of the sun (common to Carthaginian vessels) should be drawn on the sail and prow. The ship can be coloured in stripes yellow and red, with one blue band near the top; stern ornament red and yellow; sail yellow with red sun.

The ships represented in Fig. 173 and in Plate IV are made in the same way. In all these a piece of cardboard forms the foundation. Masts, high funnels, anything likely to bend, should also be cut from cardboard, but sails, stern or prow ornaments, railings, flags, etc., are best cut out of paper. By means of a needle and cotton, rigging can be added to the ships.

=A Tudor Ship= (Fig. 173). Tudor ships are difficult, because of their elaborate and lofty forecastle and poops. A simplified one is shown in the figure. This can be easily managed by the children if an oblong A B C D is given them, divided into six parts lengthways, or if the oblong E B F D is given them. In the latter case the poop and forecastle are cut out of paper and gummed on separately. The ship is coloured red, yellow and blue, the sails white. The ship may be decorated with many flags.

The =Cunarder= has red funnels, with a black band at the top and two black lines underneath.

The =Super-Dreadnought= should be coloured dark grey. Children will delight to make, in a similar way, a Roman galley, Columbus' _Santa Maria_, in which he discovered America, the _Black Prince_, in which Sir Philip Sidney's body was carried to England, Britain's first =Ironclad=, etc.

Instead of cardboard supports pieces of wood (about 1/4 inch thick, 1 inch wide, the length equal to that of the ship) can be half sawn through along the middle line and the ship inserted in this slit; or pieces of wood (cubes) may be glued to the back. In the first case the surface of the wood should be painted blue to represent water.