Ice-beds on Eschscholtz Bay 105 



" About half a mile from the sea, on the highest part of the 

 ridge, perhaps two hundred and fifty feet above high-water mark, 

 at a depth of a foot, we came to a soUdly frozen stratum, consisting 

 chiefly of bog moss and vegetable mould, but containing good- 

 sized lumps of clear ice. There seemed no reason to doubt that 

 an extension of the digging would have brought us to solid, clear 

 ice, such as was visible at the face of the bluff below. That is to 

 say, it appeared that the ridge itself, two miles wide and two hun- 

 dred and fifty feet high, was chiefly composed of solid ice overlaid 

 with clay and vegetable mould. It was noticeable that there was 

 much less clay over the top of the upper ice-face than was visible 

 over the lower one, or over the single face when there was but one 

 and the land and bluff were low near the beach. There also seemed 

 to be less vegetable matter. Near the beach six or eight feet of clay 

 were observed in some places, without counting what might be 

 considered as talus matter from further up the hillside. In one 

 place only did we notice a little fine, reddish gravel, and nowhere in 

 the talus or strata any stones. 



" The ice-face near the beach w-as not uniform. In many places 

 it was covered with clay to the water's edge. In others, where the 

 bank was less than ten feet high, the turf had bent without breaking 

 after being undermined, and presented a mossy and herbaceous 

 front, curving over quite to high-water mark. 



" The ice in general had a semi-stratified appearance, as if it 

 still retained the horizontal plane in which it originally congealed. 

 The surface was always soiled by dirty water from the earth above. 

 This dirt was, however, merely superficial. The outer inch or two 

 of the ice seemed granular, like compacted hail, and was sometimes 

 whitish. The inside was solid and transparent, or slightly yellow- 

 tinged, like peat water, but never greenish or bluish like glacier ice. 

 But in many places the ice presented the aspect of immense cakes 

 or fragments, irregularly disposed, over which it appeared as if 

 the clay, etc., had been deposited. Small pinnacles of ice ran up 

 into the clay in some places, and, above, holes were seen in the 

 face of the clay-bank, where it looked as if a detached fragment of 

 ice had been and had been melted out, leaving its mold in the clay 

 quite perfect. 



" In other places the ice was penetrated with deep holes, into 

 which the clay and vegetable matter had been deposited in layers, 

 and which (the ice melting away from around them) appeared as 

 clay and muck cylinders on the ice-face. Large rounded holes or 

 excavations of irregular form had evidently existed on the top of 



