We may briefly mention a seasonable book, Small-Boat Sailing, by
E. F. Knight (John Murray, 5s.), described in its sub-title as "An Explanation of the Management of Small Yachts, Half- decked and Open Sailing-Boats of Various Rigs ; Sailing on Sea and on River, Cruising, &c." Mr. Knight, who has a special claim on the sympathy of his readers as having lost an arm at the battle of Belmont, begins with the "Selection of a Boat," and proceeds to numberless details of its management. The book has been illustrated by Mr. H. Warrington Smyth.—A much more elaborate book on the same subject is The Sailing- Boat, by Henry Coleman Folkhard (E. Stanford, 25. 2d. net), a fifth edition of a work originally published in 1854, much more complete in every way,—and, indeed, we have advanced con- siderably during those forty-seven years (we may, in passing, congratulate the author on a duration of literary activity such as has been seldom seen). Doubtless the subject which Mr. Folk- hard has made his own is one that, barring accident, makes for long life. Mr. Folkhard elves us a summary of what is known about the vessels of the ancients. This might have been retrenched without much lose., The subject of ancient types of boat still in use, as the coracle and its Irish congener, the curragh, is more interesting. Then we come. to Part II., " The Sailing- Boats of the British Islands." Later on, we are made acquainted with various kinds of foreign boats. All the chapters are profusely illustrated from photographs and sketches.
Previous page
