GLACIERS AND ICEBERGS. 335 



breaking up of the land-ice, and the arrest of the forma- 

 tion of young ice. The great object of the mariner 

 bound to Lancaster Sound is to push his way through 

 the open lane of water along the Greenland coast, 

 and to get round the northern extremity of the drift- 

 ice. But he finds this to be no easy task: every 

 southerly gale crushes the ice in upon the shores of the 

 bay, and squeezes any unfortunate vessel chancing to 

 be placed therein before it, often wedging it up immov- 

 ably, or even breaking it to pieces under the violence 

 of the nip. The only resource of the captive voyager, 

 under such circumstances, is to seek a refuge beneath 

 the lee of some huge ice-mountain that has grounded a 

 mile or two off the land, or to take timely warning, and 

 cut docks in the solid land-floe, into which he may re- 

 tire when the pressure comes. The driving iceberg is, 

 however, a fearful neighbor, if the water prove not 

 shallow enough to arrest its movement ; for it will then 

 sometimes plough its onward way through miles and 

 miles of field and pack ice, heaving up the frozen masses 

 before its tremendous impulse, and sweeping every- 

 thing away that opposes its course. 



According to Dr. Sutherland, there is more chance of 

 an easy passage to the open water at the head of Baf- 

 fin's Bay early in the season, before the shore-ice is 

 much broken, and when the middle-ice moves away 

 from it bodily, without any intervening detritus, than 

 later in the season, when there is a greater quantity of 

 loosened ice to be packed into the channel. 



The entire length of the Baffin's Bay coast of Green- 

 land is indented with bays and fiords, towards which gla- 

 ciers descend from the higher interior land. At Cape 

 Farewell the termination of the glacier-ice is still miles 

 away from the sea ; between Cape Farewell and Cape 

 York, the land, devoid of the incursions of glacier-ice, 



