FAMOUS POLAR SHIPS ^^ 



300 to 462 tons, and Cook expressed himself very well satisfied 

 with them, deeming them well suited for his purpose. 



The ' Erebus ' and ' Terror,' as I have noted before, had 

 been bomb vessels. They had been built in the old French 

 war, and were designed to carry mortars which discharged 

 shells at an angle of 45°. It was these same vessels which, 

 after they had returned from their famous Southern voyage, 

 were lost with the ill-fated Franklin Expedition in 1845. The 

 ' Hecla' and ' Fury,' which took part in Parry's famous voyages 

 to the Arctic Regions, were also bomb vessels of the same 

 class, but many of the early Arctic ventures were provided 

 with old whalers : it soon came to be recognised what a useful 

 type of vessel this was for ice-work. 



The majority of ships employed in the Franklin Search 

 Expedition were ordinary merchant vessels purchased into the 

 navy and strengthened at considerable expense. Some of 

 these which did good service, such as the ' Enterprise ' and 

 ' Investigator,' were over 530 tons. Most of these early vessels 

 were sailing ships; the first steamers used were the ' Pioneer ' 

 and ' Intrepid ' ; they were about 430 tons burden, and both 

 had been traders under different names. 



In the latest Government Arctic Expedition of 1875 the 

 two vessels employed were, as is well known, the ' Alert ' and 

 the ' Discovery.' The ' Alert ' was an old 1 7-gun sloop espe- 

 cially strengthened for the service, but the 'Discovery,' though 

 also strengthened at Portsmouth, had been the whaler 'Blood- 

 hound,' built at Dundee for the Greenland whale trade. The 

 contrast between these two ships for ice-work was remarkable. 

 The 'Alert' had a bluff straight bow, whilst the 'Discovery' 

 had the more recently designed overhanging stem, and as a 

 result the 'Discovery' had often to be sent ahead to force a 

 passage in order that the ' Alert ' might follow. 



The lines of the ' Discovery ' represented the experience 

 gained in the whaUng trade; this industry, which had flourished 

 for so many years, and which at one time had employed more 

 than a hundred vessels sailing out of Hull, Peterhead, and 

 Dundee, was slowly dwindling, but then, and even much later, 



VOL. I. D 



