Encyclopaedia Britannica > Volume 21, ROT-Siam

804
S H I-
is the staple food-crop of the district; the next in importance is
sugar-cane; areca-nuts are also extensively grown ; and miscel¬
laneous crops include oil-seeds, vegetables, fruits, pepper, and
cardamoms. Of the total area of 3797 square miles only 699 are
returned as cultivated and 702 as cultivable. The chief manu¬
factures are coarse cotton cloths, rough country blankets or
kamblis, iron implements, brass and copper wares, pottery, and
jaggery. The district is also noted for its beautiful sandal-wood
carving.
During the Mohammedan usurpation of Mysore from 1761 to
1799, unceasing warfare kept the whole country in constant turmoil.
After the restoration of the Hindu dynasty Shimoga district
repeatedly became the scene of disturbances caused by the mal¬
administration of the Deshasta Brahmans, who had seized upon
every office and made themselves thoroughly obnoxious. These
disturbances culminated in the insurrection of 1830, which led to
the direct assumption of the entire state by the British.
SHINTO. See Japan, vol. xiii. p. 581.
SHIP. The generic name (A. S. scip, Ger. Schiff, Gr.
o-Kafos, from the root skap, cf. “ scoop ”) for the invention
by which man has contrived to convey himself and his
goods upon water points in its derivation to the fun¬
damental conception by which, when realized, a means
of flotation was obtained superior to the raft, which
we may consider the earliest and most elementary form
of vessel. The trunk of a tree hollowed out, whether
by fire or by such primitive tools as are fashioned and
used with singular patience and dexterity by savage
races, represents the first effort to obtain flotation depend¬
ing on something other than the mere buoyancy of
the material. The poets, with characteristic insight,
have fastened upon these points. Homer’s hero Ulysses
is instructed to make a raft with a raised platform upon
it, and selects trees “ withered of old, exceeding dry,
that might float lightly for him ” (Od., v. 240). Virgil,
glorifying the dawn and early progress of the arts, tells us,
“Kivers then first the hollowed alders felt” (Georg., i. 136,
ii. 451). Alder is a heavy wood and not fit for rafts.
But to make for the first time a dug-out canoe of alder,
and so to secure its flotation, would be a triumph of
primitive art, and thus the poet’s expression represents a
great step in the history of the invention of the ship.
Primitive efforts in this direction may be classified in
the following order: (1) rafts—floating logs, or bundles
of brushwood or reeds or rushes tied together; (2) dug-
outs—hollowed trees; (3) canoes of bark, or of skin
stretched on framework or inflated skins (balsas); (4)
canoes or boats of pieces of wood stitched or fastened
together with sinews or thongs or fibres of vegetable
growth; (5) vessels of planks, stitched or bolted together
with inserted ribs and decks or half decks; (6) vessels of
which the framework is first set up, and the planking of
the hull nailed on to them subsequently. All these in
their primitive forms have survived, in various parts of
the world, with different modifications marking progress
in civilization. Climatic influences and racial peculiarities
have imparted to them their specific characteristics, and,
combined with the available choice of materials, have
determined the particular type in use in each locality.
Thus on the north-west coast of Australia is found the
single log of buoyant wood, not hollowed out but pointed
at the ends. Rafts of reeds are also found on the
Australian coast. In New Guinea catamarans of three
or more logs lashed together with rattan are the com¬
monest vessel, and similar forms appear on the Madras
coast and throughout the Asiatic islands. On the coast
of Peru rafts made of a very buoyant wood are in use,
some of them as much as 70 feet long and 20 feet broad;
these are navigated with a sail, and, by an ingenious
system of centre boards, let down either fore or aft
between the lines of the timbers, can be made to tack.
The sea-going raft is often fitted with a platform so as to
protect the goods and persons carried from the wash of I
-SHI
the sea. Upright timbers fixed upon the logs forming
the raft support a kind of deck, which in turn is itself
fenced in and covered over.1 Thus the idea of a deck, and
that of side planking to raise the freight above the level of
the water and to save it from getting wet, are among the
earliest typical expedients which have found their develop¬
ment in the progress of the art of shipbuilding.
Whether the observation of shells floating on the water,
or of split reeds, or, as some have fancied, the nautilus,
first suggested the idea of hollowing out the trunk of a
tree, the practice ascends to a very remote antiquity in
the history of man. Dug-out canoes of a single tree have
been found associated with objects of the Stone Age
among the ancient Swiss lake dwellings; nor are specimens
of the same class wanting from the bogs of Ireland and
the estuaries of England and Scotland, some obtained
from the depth of 25 feet below the surface of the soil.
The hollowed trunk itself may have suggested the use of
the bark as a means of flotation. But, whatever may
have been the origin of the bark canoe, its construction
is a step onwards in the art of shipbuilding. For the
lightness and pliability of the material necessitated the
invention of some internal framework, so as to keep the
sides apart, and to give the stiffness required both for
purposes of propulsion and the carrying of its freight.
Similarly, in countries where suitable timber was not to
be found, the use of skins or other water-tight material,
such as felt or canvas, covered with pitch, giving flota¬
tion, demanded also a framework to keep them distended
and to bear the weight they had to carry. In the frame¬
work we have the rudimentary ship, with longitudinal
bottom timbers, and ribs, and cross-pieces, imparting the
requisite stiffness to the covering material. Bark canoes
are found in Australia, but the American continent is their
true home. In northern regions skin or woven material
made water-tight supplies the place of bark.
The next step in the construction of vessels was the
building up of canoes or boats by fastening pieces of wood
together in a suitable form. Some of these canoes, and
probably the earliest in type, are tied or stitched together
with thongs or cords. The Madras surf boats are perhaps
the most familiar example of this type, which, however, is
found in the Straits of Magellan and in Central Africa
(on the Victoria Nyanza), in the Malay Archipelago and in
many islands of the Pacific. Some of these canoes show a
great advance in the art of construction, being built up
of pieces fitted together with ridges on their inner sides,
through which the fastenings are passed.2 These canoes
have the advantage of elasticity, which gives them ease in
a seaway, and a comparative immunity where ordinary
boats would not hold together. In these cases the body
of the canoe is constructed first and built to the shape
intended, the ribs being inserted afterwards, and attached
to the sides, and having for their main function the
uniting of the deck and cross-pieces with the body of the
canoe. Vessels thus stitched together, and with an inserted
framework, have from a very early time been constructed
in the Eastern seas far exceeding in size anything that
would be called a canoe, and in some cases attaining to
200 tons burthen.
From the stitched form the next step onwards is to
fasten the materials out of which the hull is built up
by pegs or treenails; and of this system early types
appear among the Polynesian islands and in the Nile boats
described by Herodotus (ii. 96), the prototype of the
modern “nuggur.” The raft of Ulysses described by
1 The raft of Ulysses described in Homer {Od., v.) must have been
of this class.
2 See Capt. Cook’s account of the Friendly Islands, La Perouse on
Faster Island, and Williams on the Fiji Islands.