Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/68

64 the two, unless—as happened with the Scotia off Coats Land—she is so constructed that when the "nip" comes she rises to it, and is heaved out on the top of the ice, the floe and pack driving under her, leaving her high and dry, but safe and sound. Nothing can stop the oncoming pack except the land itself or a change of wind or tide. Sometimes the pack moves onwards even in fine weather; this means that there has been wind not very far off which has set the distant pack moving, its motion being transmitted to the entire body of ice.

With the lulling of wind comes a change. The ice which has been forced together opens up, lanes of calm water appear and smaller channels, till every piece of ice is more or less separated from its neighbour. The scene is altogether changed. As the white ice floats in the clear blue waters, one can scarcely realise that these same elements were not long since playing such a very different rôle. Now all this loose pack will with the advent of cold wintry weather be frozen together, the lanes of water will be covered once more with young or bay ice. Wind and weather may pack it closer together, the plastic new ice giving way with the old ice embedded in its matrix. The whole becomes a solid floe, and many floes unite and form great "fields" of ice. This