9. An Arctic ship should be built with sharp rather than with full lines, so that when pressed by the ice, she may more easily escape being nipped and crushed. A ship built with what is called—in England—full lines, a full, round ship, is not easily raised but is liable to be crushed by ice-pressure. The _Hansa_ was built in this manner, and was crushed by the first squeeze from the ice; the _Germania_ and the _Tegetthoff_ were both of them sharp-built ships, and stood the test of the ice excellently well. To protect it from the effects of grinding on ragged “ice-tongues,” the hull is generally iron-plated for some feet under water, and the bows are strengthened as much as possible, because this part of the ship is exposed to the greatest shocks. 10. The tactics of a ship in the ice are guided entirely by the character of the hindrances to be overcome. If the ice-fields be large and heavy, they are then generally separated by broader water-ways and “leads,” and a ship may often amid such ice follow her course for hours with few deviations subject always to the danger of being “beset” and crushed. When the passage is blocked by a barrier of ice, the situation becomes grave and serious; for such fields are not to be displaced by any force which the ship may exert, and nothing is left to the navigator but to await their parting asunder in a position as sheltered as possible. When the ice is loose and the floes comparatively small, the impeding barriers may be charged by the ship. She may then force asunder some of these floes or separate them by the continuous pressure of steam-power. In cases of this kind, large vessels have the advantage, and can bring to bear a greater amount of pressure, whereas smaller ones stick fast and remain immovable. These accumulations of ice, while they make a “besetment” more likely, diminish the danger of pressure. 11. Hence it is clear that small are to be preferred to large vessels for ice-navigation, except under circumstances of rare occurrence; first, because they are more readily handled, and next, because of their greater power of resistance and of their being more easily raised under pressure from the ice. Their one disadvantage of lesser momentum is of comparatively slight consequence. The experience of all the North Pole expeditions of this century shows, that ships of 150, or at the most of 300 tons, are best suited for all purposes. 12. Iron ships have often been employed, but with no success; they are far less able to bear pressure than wooden ships, as was proved, among other things, by the fate of the _River Tay_ in 1868, in Baffin’s Bay, and of the _Sophia_, a Swedish ship of discovery in the north of Spitzbergen.