y screws, and were of sixty-horse power each, about 150
feet long, of 400 tons burden, and rigged as three-masted schooners.
Over the whole of their original frames, tough planking called doubling
was placed, varying from three to six inches in thickness. The decks
were likewise doubled; and, as may be supposed, from such numerous
fastenings passing through the original timbers of a merchantman, every
timber was perforated with so many holes as to be weakened and rendered
useless; indeed, the vessels may have at last been considered as what
is termed "bread-and-butter built," the two layers of planking
constituting with the decks the actual strength of the vessels. At the
bow, the fine form had happily been retained, the timber strengthenings
being thrown into them at that point within, and not without; they
were, therefore, at the fore end somewhat like a strong wedge. Many an
oracle had shaken his head at this novelty; and when I talked of
cutting and breaking ice with an iron stem, the lip curled in derision
and pity, and I saw that they thought of me as Joe Stag, the Plymouth
boatman, did of the Brazilian frigate when she ran the breakwater down
in a fog,--"Happy beggar, he knows nothing, and he fears nothing."

[Headnote: _THE SCREWS._]

A few catastrophe-lovers in England having consigned Franklin to death
because he had steam-engines and screws, every precaution was taken to
secure the "Pioneer" and "Intrepid" in such a way that screw, rudder,
and sternpost might be torn off by the much-talked-of _bogie_!--the
ice,--and the vessels still be left fit to swim. In the internal
arrangements for meeting an arctic climate, we were on somewhat a
similar plan to the ships,--some difficulties being presented by the
large mass of cold iron machinery, which, of course, acted as a rapid
refrigerator. For the voyage out, the men were confined to a little
place in the bows of the vessel, and from thence to the cabins of the
officers, all was coal: a dead weight of 260 tons being originally
carried from England, which we increased to 300 tons at the Whale
Islands. This, at an average consumption of seven tons _per diem_,
would enable us _to tow the ships 3000 miles_, or, _steam alone, full
5000 miles_, carrying twelve or eighteen months' provision. The crew
consisted of thirty souls, all told, of which five were officers,--namely,
a lieutenant in command and a second master, as executive officers; an
assistant surgeon, who zea