DIMENSIONS OF AN ICE FIELD. 311 



Basin through the broader gateway above mentioned, 

 known as Kennedy Channel; and the ice, escaping 

 but slowly through the narrow Sound into Baffin Bay, 

 has accumulated within the sea from century to cen- 

 tury. The summer dismembers it to some extent 

 and breaks it up into fragments of varying size, 

 which are jDressing together, wearing and grinding 

 continually, and crowding down upon each other 

 and upon the Greenland coast, thus producing the 

 result which we have seen. 



In order fully to appreciate the power and magni- 

 tude of this ice-movement, it must be borne in mind 

 that a verj^ large proportion of the ice is of very 

 ancient formation, — old floes or ice-fields of im- 

 mense thickness and miles in extent, as well as of 

 icebergs discharged from Humboldt Glacier. These 

 vast masses, tearing along with the current in the 

 early winter through the sea as it is closing up and 

 new ice is making rapidly, are as irresistible as a tor- 

 nado among the autumn leaves. As an illustration, 

 I will give the dimensions of an old field measured 

 by me while crossing the Sound. Its average height 

 was twenty feet above the sea level, and about six 

 by four miles in extent of surface, which was very 

 uneven, rising into rounded hillocks as much as 

 eighty feet in height, and sinking into deep and 

 tortuous valleys. 



To cross such a floe with our sledges was almost as 

 difficult as crossing the hummocks themselves ; for, in 

 addition to its uneven surface, like that of a very 

 rough and broken country, it was covered with 

 crusted snow through which the sledge-runners cut 

 continually, and which broke down under the foot. I 

 estimated its solid contents, in round numbers, at 



