tion on the island was as essential to survival as was our ability
to pass successfully over the waters around the island, away to
other islands, or to the mainland). Fishing was the primary
local industry, and such tension systems as seines, trawls, weirs,
scallop drags, lobster pot heads, and traps, together with all
their respective drag and buoy gear, insured an ever-present
abundance of stout cordage and light lines as well as experience
in net-weaving, tying, splicing and serving. Here men "passed
a line" and "took a turn" in deft tension techniques as spon-
taneous as those of spiders.

This boyhood experience on an island-farm included those
first turn-of-the-century days of individual, or family, small ton-
nage water transportation almost exclusively by sail or rowboat,
leading to the experimental inclusion of the newly-invented
internal combustion engines. We had in our sloop one of the
earliest auxiliary gasoline engines within many miles, and this
induced a whole line of inventiveness, along with gallons of
sweat, relevant to priming the engine, testing the spark, and
rolling over a flywheel. But the rowboat had to serve its com-
plementary tasks, and as I had to row each day on a four-mile
round trip to another island for the mail, my first teleologic
design invention was a mechanical "jelly fish," or teepee-like,
folding, web-and-sprit cone which was mounted like an inside-
out umbrella on the submerged end of a pole. This pole could
be hand-pulled through a ring over the stern, drawing the self-
folding cone on the pole's water end through the water with
little resistance. When pushed by the pole, the cone opened
and gave inertial advantage, almost as though touching bottom,
to push-pole the boat along far more swiftly and easily than by
sculling or rowing.

These trips were frequently rowed in the fog and across strong
tidal currents which involved complete dependence upon cal-
culations and compass. The push-pole made it possible to see
ahead, having been frustrated in back-towards-bow rowing.

Our island had a rich resource of beach-dried driftwood and
standing timber, the use of which required permission of no
one. With a pocket knife and a few other tools I designed and
produced many crude, scale and full-size, experimental designs

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