Evening star., 1900-12-15

picious kitten. she picks her way among
| the ice fields of varying size, now lodging
| around that great floating island, now
! pushing aside this single floating cake. At
| ter time this scout of the seas encounters,
mayhap. frozen barrier against which, at
| irst. she seems to measure her strength
| lnsuccessfuly. Perhaps she may strain
I'd steam at full pressure for quarter of
| n hour without moving an inch, and then
finally persistence tells. and she slides slow
/ ly forward through the fissure which her
nose has poked in the ice plain.
4 Dash ut the Fioe.
| At other times she resorts to what the
! foot ball men term a flying wedge" and
with full steam ahead ordered in the en-
| gine room and perhaps a great cloud OF
| canvas spread to assist her. she makes
dash upon the impending ice. AS like as
| not she will have to go back and try 1t
over again, and there is always the possi-
| blity that the attempt will fail in the end
and that dynamite will have to be resorted
to. And there are other exciting half
/ hours in the lives of these ice hunters. as
| when their good ship must stealthily creep
alongside a small berg with high pinnacles
! in ORDER that a few Jumps of ice may be
chopped off and passed aboard to be melted
! INTO drinking water but the category of
! daily thrlllers might be carried on In
! Gehntely. All but ranking with these seal
fishers in the hardihood of their calling are
the fishermen of the Grand Banks of New
foundland and the great lakes who in Win
ter, as in summer. brave the fury of the
sputtering tugs
The men on board the ice-chalenging ca r
Ierrles in service in Europe and Asia and
America have under their feet great steel
ShOd craft built at an enormous cost to be
as nearly impervious as possible to on
siaughts of ice, but it reed not be supposed
that for this reason they wholly escape ad-
venture To stand upon the deck of one of
| 81 in 1arhi ,In,,
the thermometer is 30 below zero and watch
the steady stream of sparks pouring from
her tunnels as she craWls along the lee
choked pathway, which she has kept omen
WIN the Ice palisades perhaps a dozen feet
nigh, closely thanking her on either side is
spectacular sight to be sure but occa-
| slofally there is sterner business in hand.
On Lake Erie, a few years ago for in
stance, car ferry became imprisoned in a
vast floating field of ice. and for more than
month drlfted up and down the lake be-
tore she was finally released. Her crew
had, or necessity. to remain on board and
occasionally, when the field touched shore
a detail of men dispa tched to procure
flesh supplies, but there was always the
danger that when they sought to return
they would find that the great mass had
fo ated out into the lake and that a watery
barrier interposed.
Carrying Mails in Winter
The carrying Of the mails is task which
PROVIDES great hazards for many a winter
| mariner. F'rlnging the American continent
are many isolated islands whose inhabi-
tants, during the long winter months. have
only the lone link of the mail service to
plhd them to civilization. At some places,
such as Prince Edward Island Canada,
with winch the steamer Stanley endeavGrs
to main ain cOmmuniCa ton, and at Put-In-
Bay Island, in Lake Erie, to which the
steamer American Eagle Is the ice runner
the frozen obstacles encountered are fire.
quently such as to make the mail service
highiy uncerla ain, and how eagerly the in
habitants watch for the trail of smoke
winch marks the approach of the steamer
may readily be ina gined
NO resume of the work Of the winter
mariners would be complete without a ref
| erence to what might be termed the nro
fesslonal ice yachtsmen-the men who oper-
ate these quaint craft from business mo-
yves rather than from a love Of sport
w hen 1t Is stated that with a good wind :,
speed of a mile a minute is con. idered n,tb
liG unusual for of these ice boa,s It
VIII be seen that their possibilities for car
rElhS the mails and the transportation Of
HSHt lFelSht are limit ed on Y by the solidi v
Of the Ice field. That the ice Yacht for
commercial purposes is rapidly coming into
general use may be imagined from the fact
mat thelr scope Of operations now extends
from the Pef-Ho In China. along which The
allied armies marched to Petin. to the
more northery ports of the United s. tates
VI the new held opening to the winter
mariner, no portion is likely to prove more
important than the maintenance of oommu
nication between the United States and
Alaska during the chilly interim of each
year Some uncommonly heavy weather
ana innumerahle tons of ice must be en-
countered by the boats which travel from,
Frisco to the new land of gold, and vet
these craft must be Of light draueht in
order to enable entrance to the Alaskan
harbors, so that it viii readily be seen that
the problem Is not one to be solved In a