1875 ORIGIN OF THE ICE. 9 



Having entered deeply into the pack we had a 

 good opportunity of judging of its nature. It was 

 totally different to Baffin's Bay ice, inasmuch as each 

 piece had a smooth flat top without any sharp hummocks 

 of pressed-up ice. I remarked in my journal : ' The 

 pack consists of very old floe-ice, floating frequently from 

 eight to ten feet, and occasionally twelve feet, above 

 the water. Each piece is deeply scored horizontally 

 at the water line, leaving long tongue-pieces projecting 

 below the surface which form a very large base ; thus 

 this ice, floating high out of water, has probably one 

 quarter of its thickness exposed. This estimate would 

 make it from thirty to forty feet in total thickness. I 

 am much astonished at its unusual massiveness ; if all the 

 ice on the East Greenland coast is of a like nature we 

 may cease to wonder at the misfortune which overtook 

 the " Hansa " belonging to the German Expedition of 

 1869-70.' 



We are now able to clear up all doubt respecting 

 the birthplace, age, and thickness of this ice. It is the 

 last remains of the heavy floes formed originally in 

 the Polar Sea, which attain upwards of 100 feet in 

 thickness. These, .drifting south through the main 

 outlet between Greenland and Spitsbergen, are carried 

 by the current along the East Greenland coast round 

 Cape Farewell ; gradually melting as they reach the 

 warm Atlantic water of Davis Strait, the ice has 

 all decayed before reaching Godhaab Fiord in lat. 

 64° N. 



As this pack closely resembles that met with in the 

 Antarctic Ocean, we may conclude that a large pro- 

 portion of the ice-floes formed there have attained as 



