APPENDIX. 881 



waters, and to seek safety in shallow harbors out of the way of run- 

 ning ice. The " dead rise " should be made great, for it gives a vessel 

 more of a tendency to rise when nipped or underrun by ice, thus ex- 

 posing less of her body to the ramming and underriding of ice floes. 

 A kettle-bottomed ship is to be avoided, for every consideration of 

 safety. The only reason for building ships thus is because of their 

 carrying capacity, — for their " great bowels," as the sailors say. 



Great speed is not necessary in an Arctic ship ; it would only result 

 in her destruction if injudicious or accidental ramming should take 

 place, although great power is requisite at times to enable her to force 

 her way through ice obstructions. A coincidence has occurred in our 

 last two American Arctic cruisers. The Polaris and Jeannette both 

 had their " fore-foot" damaged, so as to cause continuous pumping 

 while their crews remained with them, and in the end the Jeannette 

 had her keel pushed right out of place, bursting open her garboard 

 strakes, letting the water up through her bottom. Moral : Have neither 

 keel or stem piece to expose to this danger. Have a false keel that 

 will be pushed off its place, not out of its place, and fore-foot and wood 

 ends enclosed or encased in iron sheathing around the bows, not on the 

 surface of the water alone, but to go all the way down to and beyond 

 the fore-foot, and clamp the whole together. Narrow bars of iron are 

 a snare. The whole surface of the ship should be covered by one 

 fourth inch sheeting of mild steel, for the following reasons : The ice of 

 the Arctic Ocean is as hard as marble, and when the square edge of a 

 floe-piece comes against the side of a wooden ship it does not glance 

 off or slip by : it cuts and gouges in ; the soft wood yields, and where 

 an iron-sheathed ship would slip up out of the grasp of the ice like a 

 greased pig from the hands of a clown, the unsheathed ship would be 

 held fast and crushed. Again, if the frames and planking of an iron- 

 sheathed ship were crushed, the sheathing would prevent the rapid in- 

 flow of water into the ship, after the manner of a sail as applied to a 

 damaged ship's bottom. Pure air and freedom from dampness are as 

 essential to the health and comfort of a ship's company as pure water 

 and good food. This can only be accomplished by billeting every 

 one above the spar deck, and having a condensing chamber surround 

 the apartment of the people to collect the moisture. Heretofore, it 

 was supposed that it would be too cold to quarter men above the 

 spar deck, but in the Jeannette the driest and warmest place in the 

 ship was in the trunk cabin above the spar deck, and the rudely made 

 deck house forward was always comfortable in winter time. In this 

 ship the men's quarters are in the centre of the ship, on the spar deck, 

 56 



