210 . OLD WHALING DAYS. 



Pancake Ice. Thin floating rounded spots of snow ice. 

 Patch. A smaller collection of broken floe ice drifted from 



the pack, varying in size. 

 Plying. Working to windward ; to beat. 

 Reaching. A vessel is said to be on a reach when she is 



sailing by the wind upon any tack. 

 Sailing Ice. A number of loose pieces, at a sufficient distance 



from each other for a ship to be able to pick her way 



among them. 



Sconce. A smaller field of ice. 

 Sound Ice. Is that which makes in the Sounds and attains 



to a great thickness, and is said to break up only every 



seven years. 

 Spectioneer. (An old Dutch word.) The chief harpooner 



who directs the cutting operations of stripping the 



whale of its blubber, also having charge of the har- 

 poons, lances, knives, etc., belonging to the whaling 



gear. 

 Standing in or off. A movement by which a ship advances 



towards a certain object, or departs from it. 

 Stream of Ice. A collection of pieces of drift ice joining 



each other in a ridge following in a line of current. 

 Tack. A ship is said to be on a tack of the side from which 



the wind comes. 

 To Tack. To go about. 

 Towing. The crew towing the ship with one or more boats 



ahead. 

 Tracking. The men on the ice dragging the ship with a 



line along the floe edge, with canvas belts called 



tracking belts. 

 Traveller of Boafs Masts, etc. A rope grummet, or an iron 



ring, fitted so as to slip up and down a spar or boat's 



mast. 

 Walrus. Its upper canines are developed into large 



descending tusks of considerable value as ivory. 



