Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/59

Rh these crystals and does not melt, but becomes part and parcel of this bay ice and is termed "slush." This may increase in thickness up to, say, 3 or 4 inches. If wind arises and sea is thrown into waves, it is found that the crystals are all separate and that the bay ice or slush is quite mobile, but it is not so mobile as the water without crystals, the shape of the waves being less sharp. In fact, the waves have an oily motion in a slush-covered sea. If one tries to pull in a boat, the pulling is found to be very heavy, and even the way of a large ship with good steam power is seriously impeded. The water is, in fact, "gluey." The "slush" may include in it any small fragments of ice that are floating on the sea at the time. Should there be a sudden lowering of the air-temperature with a heavy fall of snow, then the slush is formed in greater part of snow crystals, but has essentially the same qualities, except that it may be slightly more disintegrated than simple bay ice.

If the weather is stormy and the water is considerably disturbed, though the slush increases considerably the spicules of ice and snow are evidently more or less free, though the water continues to become more and more gluey and waves become less and less pronounced: but, if it is calm weather, the crystals become entangled in somewhat fixed positions,