148 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. September 



it was thrown over on its side, breaking in two and 

 displaying a fine massive block of bine ice the surface 

 of which was twenty feet above water. 



« ISth. — The thermometer last night rose to 36°, a 

 most unusual occurrence, and the upper deck was in 

 a dreadfully wet state from the sudden thaw. The 

 discoloured snow border at the high-water mark on 

 shore, which had been partially thawed, has to-day, 

 with a fall of temperature, refrozen and now forms a 

 broad smooth ice-foot along shore, very convenient for 

 walking on. 



' 19th. — The temperature having fallen to 15°, the 

 young ice has formed again so rapidly that Markham, 

 Parr, Aldrich and I had great difficulty in reaching 

 the shore in a boat. From the look-out hill not a 

 drop of water is to be seen anywhere. It is quite 

 impossible that a one-season floe can ever be produced 

 in this sea. In a protected position at the margin of 

 an ancient floe, a small area of young ice might be 

 formed, but no large water-space ever remains long 

 uncovered by heavy pieces of debris ice. 



' The ice at Cape Joseph Henry not leaving the 

 land with an offshore wind is a most remarkable 

 phenomenon. If it never does so I can only suppose 

 that the south-west winds blowing off the land are de- 

 flected by the United States range of mountains and 

 changed into westerly winds blowing along the coast. 



1 1 have now no longer any doubt that w^e are 

 on the border of the Polar Sea. Few would credit the 

 great thickness of these floes, and unless we had seen 

 our protecting icy barrier being formed out of the 

 broken-up sea ice, we might have reported that it was 



