Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/61

Rh currents or change of tide or other causes. For one of these reasons, the surface water spreads itself out by flowing away from one position a little more rapidly than the surface water at its rear is making up upon it, possibly on account of the dividing of the tides or a slight air blowing in a contrary direction in one quarter to that in the other; or it may be due to one of those delicate air-currents that one sees looking over a glassy Scottish loch, which by mere chance enables one fairy yacht to move ahead of its becalmed fellows not many hundred yards distant. Then the crust divides into thousands of hexagonal discs from about an inch to several feet in diameter, the diameter increasing with the thickness of the bay ice; in between the discs, the shiny black lines of water broaden into wide lanes, and the surface of the sea is like a patchwork quilt. Now, some slight disturbance occurs, a little wind or tide, which causes the surface waters to come together again, the more or less hexagonal ice discs hustle together, their delicate sides and corners are crushed and broken, and are curled up by the pressure. Thus they become subangular discs, each with a flat interior and a bruised turned-up edge, like a pancake. Again the motion of the surface of the water, due as often as not to tide, separates these discs; again they are hustled together and bruised