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It is certain that iron anchors were not then known; but it is equally
certain that large stones were used as anchors.
Homer is entirely silent respecting any implement that would serve the
purpose of a sounding line; but it is expressly mention by Herodotus as
common in his time: it was commonly made of lead or brass, and attached,
not to a cord, but an iron, chain.
In very ancient times the cables were made of leather thongs, afterwards of
rushes, the osier, the Egyptian byblus, and other materials. The Veneti
used iron cables; hence we see that what is generally deemed an invention
entirely modern, was known to a savage nation in Gaul, in the time of
Caesar. This nation was so celebrated for the building and equipment of
their vessels, which were, from all accounts, better able to withstand the
fury of the ocean than the ships even of the Greeks and Romans, that Caesar
gave orders for the building of vessels, on the Loire, similar to those of
the Veneti, large, flat-bottomed, and high at the head and stern. Yet these
vessels, built on such an excellent model, and supplied with chain-cables,
had no sails but what were made of leather; and these sails were never
furled, but only bound to the mast. Besides cables, the ancients had other
ropes to fasten ships in the harbours: the usual mode was to erect stones
for this purpose, which were bored through.
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