"Almost within the shadow of the line-of-battle ship _North Carolina_, their hulls completely hidden beneath a projecting wharf, were two little hermaphrodite brigs. Their spars had no man-of-war trigness; their decks were choked with half-stowed cargo; and for size, I felt as if I could straddle from the main hatch to the bulwarks. "At this first sight of the Grinnell Expedition, I confess 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 squadron 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 originally 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 important, is much less so than strength. Extreme power of resistance to pressure must be combined with facility of handling, adequate stowage, and a solidity of frame that may encounter sudden concussions fearlessly; and it seemed to both Mr. Grinnell and Lieutenant De Haven that these qualities might be best embodied in such small vessels as the Advance and _Rescue_. It was, indeed, something like a return to the dimensions of our predecessors of the olden time; for the three vessels of Frobisher summed up only seventy-five tons, and Baffin's largest was ten tons less in burden than the _Rescue_. As the vessels of our expedition were more thoroughly adapted, perhaps, for this dangerous service than any that had been fitted out before for the Arctic seas, I will describe them in detail. "Commencing with the outside: the hull was literally double, a brig within a brig. An outer sheathing of two and a half inch oak was covered with a second of the same material; and strips of heavy sheet-iron extended from the bows to the beam, as a shield against the cutting action of the new ice. The decks were double, made water-tight by a packing of tarred felt between them. The entire interior was lined, _ceiled_, with cork; which, independently of its low conducting power, was a valuable protection against the condensing moisture, one of the greatest evils of the polar climate.