1G8 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SKA. Octobi 



When a heavy fall of snow occurs during the autumn, 

 thin ice is thus ever increasing in thickness superficially, 

 consequently any article which may be left lying about 

 becomes frozen in and buried. An old floe being able 

 to support the weight of the snow, and not admitting 

 of percolation from below, does not add to its upper 

 surface in the same manner. 



' Although we are surrounded by large pieces of 

 sea- water ice, of great age, it is difficult to obtain any 

 that is perfectly free from salt. In many places the 

 ice when melted is sufficiently pure to drink, and the 

 salt contained in it cannot be detected by tasting, but 

 Dr. Colan will not admit it as perfectly pure water. 

 The ice we have been using for drinking purposes is 

 obtained from the surface of a gigantic flat-topped 

 floeberg, eighty feet in thickness, which is lying firmly 

 aground, after having been forced up the incline of the 

 sea-bottom and raised about eight feet by the pressure 

 of the outside pack. At the bottom of the coating of 

 hard compact snow which lies on its surface, and 

 which appears to me to have withstood the last 

 summer's thaw, is a thin stratum of crystallized snow 

 one inch and a quarter thick. Beneath is a thickness 

 of from ten to twelve inches of perfectly pure ice lying 

 above the brackish ice of which the rest of the floeberg 

 consists. There is a horizontal dividing line between 

 the fresh and the salt ice, the pure ice being the 

 whitest of the two ; but the pieces of ice chipped off 

 from the two parts are precisely alike as regards trans- 

 parency. Dust spots are plentiful in the salt ice lying 

 at various depths, but generally in connected layers ; 

 the fresh ice contains none. Occasionally at the dividing 



