12 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. April 



Cape Columbia it was hard, and afforded fair travel- 

 ling. 



It was often difficult to decide whether they were 

 travelling over land or ice. From the formation which 

 we observed taking place later in the season, when the 

 early thaw changed the upper crust of the snow into 

 ice, above which the summer torrents afterwards de- 

 posited soil and gravel, it is probable that the whole 

 coast-line between the shore-hummocks and the high 

 land is a combination of the two and formed in a similar 

 manner. 



On the 22nd, when near Cape Colan, Aldrich re- 

 marks : — 



' While camping I dug down, and found the snow to 

 vary from one to four and-a-half feet in thickness. At 

 the latter depth I came to what I at first thought was 

 land, but which turned out afterwards to be a, thin 

 layer or covering of soil or mud lying on top of the 

 hard ice. This may possibly have been washed down 

 from the hills. We are about half a mile from the 

 shore, which slopes very gradually up from the ice. 

 From the great changes in the depth of the snow, the 

 floe would appear to be of a round, hummocky nature, 

 similar to a "blue top," and from the absence of 

 hummocks or floebergs probably never breaks up. 



' I have called the coast-line " apparent," as it is 

 difficult to determine where the land begins and the 

 ice ends. 



' We now and again come across a crack, generally 

 about a foot or eighteen inches wide ; these, as a rule, 

 extend in a north and south direction. We sounded 

 the depth of one and found it to be fourteen feet. 



