Re Viking stuff: I went to a Viking Society convention in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) last Saturday (a local society and this was their first convention) particularly because my friend John R. Hale was speaking on precursors of the Viking longboat. If you have access to Scientific American (online or otherwise), you can find a wonderful article John published there in 1998 which is illustrated with his "genealogical" chart of the evolution of the longboat from hand-hewn canoes made from linden trees. He wrote a couple of other VERY interesting articles for Sci. Am. but.... not Viking connected. Anne in Ardmore , back after a hiatus