May 9, 1884.] 
the least amount of material, which is quite a 
consideration when this monstrous mass has to 
be removed in the spring. 
The drifting winter-beset ship has one ad- 
vantage worth noting. If drifting towards 
warmer waters, as is generally the case in fol- 
lowing the usual routes, she is almost certain 
of a safe and speedy release in the early spring 
months; and the constant state of alarm ex- 
perienced by all ships’ crews while in these 
involuntary journeys from ice-pressures, and 
threatenings of a general destruction of the 
ice-fields, has almost its compensation in the 
necessarily banished ennui and lonesomeness 
SCIENCE. 
D67T 
in by the crew by short rambles and hunts is 
lost. 
A vessel safely anchored in a good harbor 
is, of course, in the most favored condition of 
all. She may unbend her sails, lower her yards 
and topmasts, presenting a minimum of surface 
to the heavy arctic gales of that season of the 
year, while she is awaiting her freezing in, and 
which is especially necessary when the char- 
acter of the bottom of the harbor is such that 
there is danger of dragging the anchors. Once 
frozen in securely, the anchor can be raised, 
the rudder cut out and unshipped, and all these, 
with masts, and yards, and spare stores, and 
Fie. 2.— WHALERS AT MARBLE [SLAND. 
of the long polar night, with its accompanying 
evils of idleness and disease. Forced activity 
to overcome lonesomeness soon wearies, loses 
its effect, and becomes really a punishment, 
while that prompted by danger never loses its 
stimulating effect. 
A vessel wintering in the ice, unable to 
secure a harbor, but not subject to drift, may 
be liable to much danger when the fields break 
up in the following summer; and this danger 
will generally be greater the farther she is from 
land, owing to her earlier liberation, probably 
long before the navigable season commences. 
In a vessel far from land much of the benefit 
derived from the voluntary exercise indulged 
provisions, may be placed on the shore con- 
veniently by, and then room be made for the 
winter’s entertainments, exercises, and studies. 
The very first thing a ship should do, after 
selecting her winter harbor, is to get ample 
provisions ashore, to be prepared for the loss 
of the ship by wreck or fire. This is always 
done by the whalers. A vessel is then ‘ housed 
in,’ which is done by building a shed over the 
deck with lumber brought for that purpose. 
This house is generally about seven feet high, 
the lumber covered with canvas, this with a 
layer of moss or turf six inches to a foot thick, 
cut in the early fall before it has frozen, and 
dried as much as possible, and this layer of 
