IN NEW YORK HARBOR. 
19 
fess that the fastidious experience of naval life on 
board frigates and corvettes made me look down on 
these humble vessels. They seemed to me more like 
a couple of coasting schooners than a national squad- 
ron bound for a perilous and distant sea. Many a 
time afterward I recalled the short-sighted ignorance 
of these first impressions, when some rude encounter 
with, the ice made comfort and dignity very secondary 
thoughts. 
The "Advance," my immediate home, had been orig- 
inally intended for the transport of machinery. Her 
timbers were heavily moulded, and her fastenings of 
the most careful sort. She was fifty-three tons larger 
than her consort, the " Rescue ;" yet both together 
barely equaled two hundred and thirty-five tons. 
To navigate an ice-bound sea, speed, though import- 
ant, is much less so than strength. Extreme power 
of resistance to pressure must be combined with facil- 
ity of handling, adequate stowage, and a solidity of 
frame that may encounter sudden concussions fearless- 
ly ; and it seemed to both Mr. G-rinnell and Lieutenant 
De Haven that these qualities might be best embodi- 
ed in such small vessels as the Advance and Rescue. 
It was, indeed, something like a return to the dimen- 
sions of our predecessors of the olden time ; for the 
three vessels of Frobisher summed up only seventy- 
five tons, and Bafiin's largest was ten tons less in bur- 
den than the Rescue. As the vessels of our expedition 
were more thoroughly adapted, perhaps, for this dan- 
gerous service than any that had been fitted out be- 
fore for the Arctic Seas, I will describe them in de- 
tail. 
Commencing with the outside : the hull was liter- 
ally double, a brig within a brig. An outer sheathing 
