a small open vessel, propelled on the water by oars or sails. The construction, machinery, and even the names of boats, are very different, according to the various purposes for which they are intended, and the services on which they are to be employed. Thus they are occasionally slight or strong, sharp or flat-bottomed, open or decked, plain or ornamented; as they may be designed for swiftness or burden, for deep or shallow water, for sailing in a harbour or at sea, and for convenience or pleasure. The largest boat that usually accompanies a ship is the long-boat, which is generally furnished with a mast and sails. Long-boats fitted for men-of-war are occasionally decked, armed, and equipped, for cruising short distances against merchant ships of the enemy, or smugglers, for impressing seamen, and other services. The barges, which are next in order, are longer, lighter, and narrower. They are employed to carry the principal sea-officers, as admirals and captains of ships of war, and are unfit for the open sea. Pinasses exactly resemble barges, but are somewhat smaller, and have never more than eight oars; whereas a barge properly never rows less than ten. The cutters of a ship are broader, deeper, and shorter, than the barges and pinasses: they are fitter for sailing, and are commonly employed in carrying stores, provisions, passengers, and the like, to and from the ship. In the structure of this sort of boat the lower edge of every plank in the side overlays the upper edge of the plank below, which is called by ship-wrights clinker-build. Yards are somewhat less than cutters, nearly of the same form, and used for similar services. They are generally rowed with six oars. The above boats more particularly belong to men-of-war. Merchant-vessels above 150 tons have at least two, a long-boat and yawl. Merchant-ships employed in the Mediterranean find it more convenient to use a launch, which is longer, flatter in the bottom, and better adapted every way to the harbours of that sea, than a long-boat. A wherry is a light, sharp boat, used in a river or harbour for carrying passengers from place to place. Punts are a sort of oblong flat-bottomed boats, nearly resembling floating stages. They are used by ship-wrights and caulkers, for breaching, caulking, or repairing a ship's bottom. It is also the name for the smallest boat of yachts, &c. A moses is a very flat, broad boat, used by merchant-ships among the Caribbee Islands, to bring hogsheads of sugar off from the sea-beach to the shipping anchored in the roads. A felucca is a strong passage-boat used in the Mediterranean, and propelled with oars and lateen sails. The pirogue of the southern and eastern seas is a kind of canoe made of the trunk of a tree hollowed out. It is generally worked with paddles, but sometimes it is decked and furnished with sails and an outrigger. The proa, so much used by pirates in the Eastern Archipelago, is sharp at both ends, in order to sail either way. Its lee-side is rounded, but the weather-side is flat, and provided with an outrigger to secure its stability.