A BEETLE BOAT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8634, 25 October 1889, Page 4

A BEETLE BOAT.

A New York man has been over to the French Exposition, and has taken back with him the latest French device for navigating rivers. It bears the peculiar name of podoscaph, and is a sort of tiny raft; the man who navigates it must have the knack of balancing himself highly developed. It consists of two tiny skit's or canoes made of paper, and too light and small to safely contain even a boy, but by. being made into a sort of a catamaran, by fastening one broad light paper board between the two, it will carry a full-sized man with a certain amount of safety and, under certain circumstances, with considerable speed. It is very light) and can be carried under one arm about as easily as a pasteboard box, and is drier than most rafts, being elevated several inches above the water by the skiffs. There are two ways of sailings the podoscaph. The first is by rowing it with a light pair of spoon paddles; the second is by sailing it, which is done by means of the .ordinary large white umbrella, and this is the favourite French method, the owners of the podoscaph in that country sailing it with their umbrellas placidly up and down the Seine with almost the speed of steam, for these little light things have no weight and are so buoyant that the slight impetus given them by an umbrella held in the hands of the navigator makes them fly over the water. But the American fashion would never have been dreamed of by a Frenchman. The man who ;ook it over is spending his vacation on the banks of a small, quiet river, and starting out the other day for a tcur upon his podoscaph he purchased of a neighbouring farmer a flock of 12 ducks, which he harnessed to his new boat, and taking aboard his umbrella and oars as well, he started off down the stream. He was gone six days, and when he returned he was minus the ducks, two of which ho declared he had eaten every night for dinner, and that they had materially aided him in his voyage. The new boat has value enough in itself to become popular and will, no doubt, be added in the course of time to the other fragile little craft which spin about like merry water beetles in the lower bay.