The restoration of a tiny eighteenth-century ship model made by prisoners of war reveals mysteries of several kinds.(Discoveries)

To imagine a tiny ship model painstakingly carved and rigged by a homesick sailor in a damp English prison is to be reminded of the doggedness of the creative spirit. With time, incarceration, ingenuity, and only wood, bones, and hair for materials, French prisoners of war created a unique form of folk art--small ships, some as small as two inches, some as large as seven feel, that are often remarkable for their accuracy and grace.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, the British were at war with a number of European powers, most often the French. And though the French had the best ships, the British had the best ...