ARCTIC S. S. "ROOSEVELT" 359 



his check was increased by an amount that rounded 

 out the $50,000 and so the building of the Roosevelt 

 became a certainty. 



In approaching the general question of a ship for 

 Arctic or Antarctic ice navigation, one thing is imme- 

 diately apparent to anyone at all conversant with the 

 matter, i. e., that she should be as small as is con- 

 sistent with canying the party, supplies, equipment, 

 and coal for the work planned. 



The reasons for this are evident. The smaller a ship 

 is, the stronger she is, and the more easily handled. 



In looking for facts to show the results of past ex- 

 perience in this field, it is at once discovered that 

 practically all ice boats past and present have been 

 built by the three countries, Scotland, the United 

 States, and Norway, for the prosecution of the whale 

 and seal fisheries. 



In this work the Norwegians have operated in the 

 seas about Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen, East Greenland, 

 and Nova Zembla; the United States in Hudson Bay 

 and Bering Sea; and the Scotch principally in the 

 chain of waters comprising Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, 

 Lancaster Sound and their tributaries, with a few 

 voyages to East Greenland and Hudson Bay. 



The ice conditions encountered by the Norwegians 

 and Americans may be very broadly stated as floes and 

 broken ice drifting in an open sea, through which the 

 ships have to thread their way. 



The ice conditions encountered by the Scotch 

 whalers, are a nearly solid expanse of one season's ice 

 in Melville Bay, and when that is passed, heavy ice 

 in narrow land-locked channels, notorious for their 



