X.] OPENINGS IN THE ICE. .^91 



arise obliquely from the summits of the mountains, giving them 

 the appearance of volcanos, which throw out enormous columns 

 of smoke, flame-coloured by the reflection from the glowing 

 lava streams in the depths of the crater, 



A blue water-sky was still visible out to sea, indicating that 

 open water was to be found there. I therefore sent Johnsen the 

 hunter over the ice on the 18th December to see how it was. 

 In three-quarters of an hour's walking from the vessel he found 

 an extensive opening, recently covered with thin, blue, newly 

 frozen ice. A fresh northerly breeze blew at the time, and by it 

 the drift-ice fields were forced together with such speed, that 



-j=^^&*l|il**!3 



REFRACTION-HALO. 



Seen on Spitzbeigen in May 1673, siimiltaTieously with the Reflection-halo delineated on the 



following page. 



Johnsen supposed that in a couple of hours the whole lead 

 would be completely closed. 



In such openings in Greenland white whales and other small 

 Avhales are often enclosed by hundreds, the natives thus having 

 an opportunity of making in a few hours a catch which would 

 be sufficient for their support during the whole winter, indeed 

 for years, if the idea of sating ever entered into the imagination 

 of the savage. But here in a region where the pursuit of the 

 whale is more productive than in any other sea, no such occur- 

 rence has happened. During the whole of our stay on the coast 

 of the Chukch country we did not see a single whale. On the 



