146 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



was in motion to the eastward and often would come in contact with 

 the floe on which we stood. Then the rending and tearing and 

 crushing of the floes was almost deafening, and pieces of ice larger 

 than an ordinary house would be tumbled about like corks in the 

 water. The opposite floe would come tearing along at a speed of 

 over a mile an hour, and when it encountered the land-fast ice 

 something was sure to happen. Ridges thirty feet high and more 

 would be formed one moment, and tumble back into the sea the 

 next as the pressure from the moving field was abated. Wilkins 

 took my photograph with one of these ridges for a background. 

 Then we returned to the tent with the first inkling, on my part at 

 least, of the resistless power of the arctic ice in motion because of 

 either current or wind. It was a weird and impressive sight. I 

 was a little sobered by it." 



The grinding of the fioes against the land-fast ice and against 

 each other makes what we call the "mush ice," which may be a soft 

 slush or may consist of fragments the size of your fist, the size of 

 a kitchen range or of a house. As the floes spin about open patches 

 of water of all shapes and sizes will form, to close again when the 

 floes continue their revolution. After such a heavy gale as we had 

 just had, pieces more than a dozen acres in area are rare in the 

 vicinity of land ice, but the farther from land the larger the pieces, 

 and fifty miles from shore the hardest gale will leave most of the 

 ice still in the form of big, coherent masses, miles in diameter. Nat- 

 urally, when the edges of such floes meet, a certain amount of mush 

 ice is formed, no matter what the distance from shore. 



It is evident that no camp on sea ice is ever entirely safe. Even 

 fifty miles from shore a crack may open in the middle of the floor 

 of your snowhouse or tent, though the chances of this decrease with 

 the distance from land. The original crack may be several hun- 

 dred yards from camp, yet when the two floes begin to grind past 

 each other the edges of both tend to break up. The greatest danger 

 comes when the ice mass that strikes yours is traveling so that the 

 lines of motion of the adjacent floe and of your floe intersect at 

 some such small angle as ten to thirty degrees. Huge pieces are 

 then torn rapidly off the edges of both floes if they are of similar 

 thickness, or off the edge of the weaker. If you happen to be 

 camped on the weaker one it behooves you to move quickly. Pieces 

 of your floe the size of a city lot will rise on edge and tumble to- 

 wards you, and the ice around camp and under will begin to groan 

 and buckle and bend. Where it bends little rivers of sea water 

 come rushing in, and where it buckles small pressure-ridges form. 



