Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/341

Rh only to freshwater ice that has been formed on land and by the agency of glaciers thrust into the sea. When floes have been broken up into pieces of comparatively small size, the term "pack- ice" is applied to it. Pack-ice is designated loose or close pack according to the juxtaposition of its component pieces. In the vocabulary of the Arctic traveller these definitions are multiplied to a great extent by various designations applied to local conditions, or variations in the size, shape, or consistency of the ice-masses, all of which terms are of peculiar significance and value to the navigator in the frozen seas, but not to the general reader.

Throughout the stretch of nature I know of no sight more enchanting than that when steaming amidst ice, on a placid sea, surrounded with brilliant sunshine. Beautiful as are the colours in the tropics, they are equalled, if not surpassed, by the hues of the Arctic Seas. The pieces of ice which surrounded us were worn, fretted, and honeycombed by the continual motion of the warm sea-water, and had assumed the most extraordinary shapes. It required but little effort of the imagination to convert one frag- ment into the likeness of an immense bird ; another into that of a bear, or an enormous coral, a house, a pillar, or indeed almost any object one's fancy dictated. The colours reflected from the ice were indeed lovely. In many pieces bright blues were the pre- dominant shades, the tint on the edges of the masses above water being of a cerulean hue, deepening in intensity towards the centre, until, in the depths of a water-worn grotto, it rivalled the richest sapphirine-violet ; the submerged portions of the ice appeared bright green through the setting of a dull green sea.

A few Looms, Alca Brunnichi, and Little Auks, Mergulus alle, enlivened the scene, whilst here and there Seals were stretching themselves most unconcernedly on the pieces of ice.

The position where this pack-ice is met with off Cape Farewell, being south of the parallel of sixty, or about that of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, and Bergen in Norway, and over three degrees south of Trondhjem, is at the first glance so surprising that it is worth while devoting a short space to a consideration of the subject, and when we reflect how intimately connected is the existence of the present flora and fauna of Western Europe with the deflection of the East Greenland ice-stream around Cape Farewell to the American continent, it must be admitted that the subject is one deserving the attention of all persons professing to