THE YERMAK ICE BREAKER. 457 



mocks are formed at the time when ice is moved t)y the .swell: the 

 result of this is that every piece of ice finds its best position, and 

 the whole hummock is very compact. When the ship charges into 

 it, it does not always form long cracks, but breaks under the ship, 

 producing no heavy effect upon her skin. When the ship passes half 

 of its length in such a floe, she touches so many fragments of ice that 

 they stop the progress of the ship by the friction and the pressure 

 upon the skin of the fore part of the ship. When the ship stops, 

 there is no other way than to go back and charge again. This time, 

 before the bow of the ship touches the solid ice it has to run through 

 100 feet or so of broken ice; that diminishes very much the speed of 

 the ship, which on a second charge may make a very little headway. 

 It happens sometimes that after the ship stops going ahead it won't 

 go back, and it takes half an hour, until by reversing the engines 

 ahead and astern one can get the ship out of this disagreeable stand- 

 still position. From time to time it happens that one has to get the 

 use of an ice anchor to move the ship astern. Nothing like this hap- 

 pens in the polar ice, which breaks into big pieces, and consequently 

 there is not so much skin resistance. The moment you stop j^our 

 engines the ship goes back herself, and there will be no fragments 

 left which could stop her progress when she charges the second time. 

 For this reason the second charge will be almost as efficient as the 

 first, and we never wanted an ice cage to move the ship in the polar 

 region. 



Fresh-water ice in the Baltic is stronger than the salt-water ice in 

 the Arctic Sea, but, owing to the dimensions of the pieces of the ice, 

 the ship never receives such tremendous local blows in the Baltic Sea 

 as in the polar region. The general conclusion is that in the Baltic 

 the force of the engine is required, while in the Arctic the strength 

 of the construction is the main thing to pay attention to. 



It is most interesting to decide the question whether my idea of 

 exploring the polar regions by means of ice breakers is sound or not; 

 whether in future explorers of the Arctic should stick to their sledges 

 and dogs, or trust themselves to the drifting ships of Dr. Nansen, or 

 embark upon the strong ice breakers. It looks as if the \oyage on the 

 ice breaker is the most expensive of the three, but it saves time, which, 

 if properly calculated, is always money. If we come to the conclu- 

 sion that the ice breaker is to be used for the exploration of the 

 Arctic, then comes the question, What sort of ice breaker is good for 

 that purpose? Shall we repeat the Yermak, or shall we give to the 

 new ice breaker another feature, basing ourselves upon the lesson 

 given us by the experiments of the Yermak in the polar ice? Surely 

 the Yermak is not the last work of science in that direction. The for- 

 ward propeller was very much praised in America, and i)rovcd to be 

 useful in the Baltic. But when we first entered the ice in June last, I 



