GRBELY RELIEF EXPEDITION. 15 



These vessels were carefully inspected, as they arrived, by the 

 several Chiefs of Bureaus and by myself. The Bear and Thetis, be- 

 ing steam whalers fitted for cruising in the ice off the coast of Lab- 

 rador and in Melville Bay, were staunch vessels, and, with perhaps 

 one exception, were the best vessels of the whaling and sealing fleet. 

 Their experience later in the heavy ice of Melville Bay and Smith's 

 Sound proved them superior to any of the vessels of their class for 

 general ice work. 



After their inspection on arrival it was determined, with your 

 approval, in the case of the Thetis and Bear, to remodel the officers' 

 quarters ; to build quarters for their crews by extending the top- 

 gallant forecastle abaft on the spar deck; to lay extra beams be- 

 tween those of the lower decks; to put in truss beams from bilge to 

 middle of lower-deck beams; to put iron straps over stem secured 

 with through bolts to forward dead-wood; to construct water-tight 

 bulkheads forward and abaft; to fill in space between keel and gar- 

 board strakes with sponsons against the pressure of ice forced later- 

 ally under their bottoms; to dock, caulk and paint the ships; to 

 overhaul engines and boilers, repairing all piping, shafting, valves, 

 &c. ; to place in the fire-rooms two donkey-boilers for general use 

 during winter; to overhaul all standing rigging, and to replace all 

 running rigging with new gear; to give them a complete suit of new 

 sails; to equip all quarters with mattresses, and officers' quarters with 

 table and bed linen, china, glass, and plated ware; to supply a com- 

 plete outfit of arctic clothing and provisions for ofiicers and men, 

 and to furnish each ship with a Herreshoff steam cutter, the Alert 

 with White's steam, cutter. The exceptional strength and recent 

 refitting of the Alert in England rendered no change necessary in 

 her equipment beyond the construction of berths for her crew on 

 the forward part of her berth deck; the removal of some unimpor- 

 tant bulkheads in her hold to afford better stowage of her stores; 

 to repair her rigging and sails, and to overhaul her engines and 

 their dependencies. 



Experiment indicated that with the use of anthracite coal in the 

 furnaces of these vessels there would be a loss of at least 30 per cent. 

 of their speed; therefore it was determined to use the best Welsh 

 coal in order to avoid this loss. The use of bituminous coal carried 

 with it a danger of spontaneous combustion, and to reduce this to a 

 minimum a system of steam jets was placed in the holds and the 

 bunkers of the vessels as a security against fire from this cause. 



The coal transport Ybarra' was chartered, and brought over from 

 Cardiff 2,000 tons of Welsh coal of superior quality for the three ships. 

 To supply the expeditionary force in the Arctic regions after leaving 

 St. John's, Newfoundland, a contract was entered into with the 

 agents of the English steamer Loch Garry, Messrs. Sutton & Co., 

 t)f New York, to transport 500 tons of coal in bags from Cardiff, 



