230 OLD WAVY ICE. [March, 



by shrouds from its extremity, greater by two feet than 

 the width of the sledge, which had also been increased 

 for carrying the ice-boat, and our tent bottom was now 

 formed into a well made sail. We were therefore " ship- 

 shape," and might easily be mistaken for a gig under 

 her customary lug ; or, in case of very reduced canvas, it 

 could readily, by elongating the yard, constructed of one 

 bamboo and one tough mahogany flag-staff, be converted 

 into a latteen (in the line of holes from tack to yard-arm). 



I have before alluded to the floe we came over, head 

 to wind. Our progress now was somewhat swifter ; but 

 of tin's very uneven and extraordinary floe I would now 

 speak. Whence arises this wavy, glassy ice, undulating 

 at such a very sharp pitch, viz. about two feet rise from 

 the level hollow to the vertex or crown of the succeeding 

 arch, or on a chord of thirty-two feet, about two feet 

 difference of level ? 



The age of this ice and it pervaded all the portion 

 subject to this windy part of the strait appeared great. 

 The only rational cause to which I could assign its for- 

 mation was the channelling by summer thaws and the 

 forcing the water thus produced by the prevailing gusts 

 over the irregular ridges, on which the sun did not act : 

 this is the more probable, inasmuch as some of the in- 

 tervening spaces, covered by the snow, presented smooth, 

 clear blue, level ice, in long spaces, evidently where the 

 water had been quiescent, whereas all these abrupt swells 

 were composed of grey ice, rough, and abounding in 

 air-cells of the size of hemp-seed or peas. As I before 

 noticed, within and without this strait it was not met 

 with ; there the ordinary level snow-clad floe prevailed. 



