The chief differences which appear in the several “counterfeit presentments” of the historic ship are in the number of her masts and the height of her poop and her forecastle.  A few make her a brig or “snow” of the oldest pattern, while others depict her as a full-rigged ship, sometimes having the auxiliary rig of a small “jigger” or “dandy-mast,” with square or lateen sail, on peak of stern, or on the bow sprit, or both, though usually her mizzenmast is set well aft upon the poop.  There is no reason for thinking that the former of these auxiliaries existed upon the may-Flower, though quite possible.  Her 180 tons measurement indicates, by the general rule of the nautical construction of that period, a length of from 90 to 100 feet, “from taffrail to knighthead,” with about 24 feet beam, and with such a hull as this, three masts would be far more likely than two.  The fact that she is always called a “ship”—­to which name, as indicating a class, three masts technically attach—­is also somewhat significant, though the term is often generically used.  Mrs. Jane G. Austin calls the may-Flower a “brig,” but there does not appear anywhere any warrant for so doing.

At the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum) at Washington, D. C., there is exhibited a model of the may-Flower, constructed from the ratio of measurements given in connection with the sketch and working plans of a British ship of the merchant may-Flower class of the seventeenth century, as laid down by Admiral Francois Edmond Paris, of France, in his “Souvenirs de Marine.”  The hull and rigging of this model were carefully worked out by, and under the supervision of Captain Joseph W. Collins (long in the service of the Smithsonian Institution, in nautical and kindred matters, and now a member of the Massachusetts Commission of Inland Fisheries and Game), but were calculated on the erroneous basis of a ship of 120 instead of 180 tons measurement.  This model, which is upon a scale of 1/2 inch to 1 foot, bears a label designating it as “The ‘Mayflower’ of the Puritans” [sic], and giving the following description (written by Captain Collins) of such a vessel as the Pilgrim ship, if of 120 tons burthen, as figured from such data as that given by Admiral Paris, must, approximately, have been. (See photographs of the model presented herewith.) “A wooden, carvel-built, keel vessel, with full bluff bow, strongly raking below water line; raking curved stem; large open head; long round (nearly log-shaped) bottom; tumble in top side; short run; very large and high square stern; quarter galleries; high forecastle, square on forward end, with open rails on each side; open bulwarks to main [spar] and quarter-decks; a succession of three quarter-decks or poops, the after one being nearly 9 feet above main [spar] deck; two boats stowed on deck; ship-rigged, with pole masts [i.e. masts in one piece]; without jibs; square sprit sail (or water sail under bowsprit); two square sails on fore and main masts, and lateen sail on mizzenmast.”