CHAPTER XXX. 

 Navigation of Hudson's Bay and Strait.— Continued. 



ICEBERGS AND THEIR ORIGIN — VARIOUS KINDS OF ICE FOUND IN 

 HUDSON STRAIT — LOCAL ICE — ITS THICKNESS, MOVEMENTS, 

 AND INTERFERENCE WITH NAVIGATION — THE FOX CHANNEL ICE — 

 ITS THICKNESS AND FREQUENCY OF APPEARANCE IN THE STRAIT — 

 THE SEASON OF NAVIGATION. 



: CE, in certain seasons of the year, will always be an obstacle to 

 the navigation of Hudson Strait ; but I hold the opinion that 

 having acquired a full knowledge of the character and move- 

 ^ ments of the ice, and being furnished with steam vessels 

 suited to those waters, the mariner will have but little difficulty in 

 making expeditious voyages from the west shore of Hudson's Bay to 

 the ports of Europe, during at least eight months in each year. 



The ice met with in Hudson Strait is of three classes, viz. 

 icebergs, ordinary field-ice, produced in the Bay and Strait, and 

 arctic ice. 



There will never be much difficulty with the bergs — not half as 

 much as is annually experienced in the Strait of Belle Isle, where, 

 owing to the narrowness of the channel, vast numbers of these huge 

 floating ice-mountains come together, rendering the navigation 

 dangerous in fogs and thick weather. Not so in Hudson Strait. 

 They are always sufficiently scattered to render them easily avoided. 

 We saw large numbers of these bergs in the Strait, principally along 

 the north shore, but I do not think that during all our crossing and 

 re-crossing of the Strait, the Neptune was even once compelled 

 to change her course on account of their presence. 



So far as known, there are but two inlets through which icebergs 

 enter Hudson's Strait. Nine-tenths of them gain access through Fox 



