The sides of the ship are from twenty-four to thirty inches thick. [Illustration: A STUDY IN BRONZE Typical face of Eskimo woman ] [Illustration: AHWEAHGOODLOO Four-year-old Eskimo girl dressed in blue fox kapetah and sealskin kamiks ] To keep even these heavy sides from being crushed in, they were reinforced by heavy deck beams placed unusually close together, and a lower tier of heavy beams just below the water-line forming with steel rods and inclined posts and struts to the ship’s sides and bilges, a strong truss at an interval of every four feet in the length of the ship. The housing of the personnel of the expedition in light structures on deck, which personal experience has shown to be much the simpler and better plan than below decks, permits a stronger and more effective arrangement of these trusses than has been attained in previous ships. The interior of the bow, which is to the ship what the _cestus_ was to the ancient gladiator, is filled in solid with timbers and iron. The stern also, as well as the stem, is iron-plated, and the rudder post, which is the Achilles’s heel of an Arctic ship, is of unusually strong construction. The rudder is so arranged that it can be hoisted on deck out of the way of the ice if necessary. The propeller is so arranged that it can be used either as a two-bladed or a four-bladed propeller, and is made of unusual strength. Powerful deck appliances in the shape of windlass, steam capstans and winch, enable the ship to warp herself out of a dangerous place, or pull herself off the bottom should she get aground. The whole plan and theory of the ship was, first, that her strength, her power, her weight, her carrying capacity, should all be below the main deck, and that everything above deck—houses, bulwarks, spars, sails, rigging, boats and equipment—should be as light as possible, to permit more coal in the hold; and second, that not a dollar was to be wasted on fittings or frills, everything to be for strength, power, and effectiveness. The keel of the _Roosevelt_ was laid October 15, 1904, in the McKay & Dix shipyard at Bucksport, Maine, and the ship was launched the 23d of March, 1905, Mrs. Peary shattering a block of ice containing a bottle of champagne against the steel-clad stem as the hull glided down the ways and christening the ship _Roosevelt_. The installation of the machinery began two days later at Portland, Maine, and was practically completed in less than two months.