September, 1865.J Rocks and DehHs on the Ice. 193 



could be made for the whalers. Steadfast in the purpose to succeed in 

 the several objects of his voyage, he had declined to accept offers from 

 the whalers of a passage home. When he now set up liis tu-pik the 

 glories of a beautiful sunset were changing the Arctic hues of the 

 landscape into tropical warm coloring, and filling the grayish, cool 

 atmosphere with an unnatural brilliancy. 



HALL'S NOTES ON FINDING ROCKS AND DIilBRIS ON 



THE ICE. 

 The journal of the 25th of July contains the following items of 



interest to the scientist : 



This evening I liave taken a walk among the grounded bergy pieces of ice 

 that are near the west side of this island, and also on to the heavy masses of ice 

 that are high and dry on the rocks on the northwest side. Spring-tides at this 

 season of the year open a book that any Arctic traveler delights to read and 

 study. The special part of this book of nature that 1 am at present reading, relates 

 to stones, rocks, and sand found on the ice. The question among Arctic navigators 

 has been, "How came these here?" Parry, when on his second voyage for the 

 discovery of the Northwest Passage, met with much ice in the neighborhood of 

 Southampton Island, on the surface of which he saw a surprising quantity of 

 stone, sand, shells, and weed ; and respecting these he makes the following re- 

 marks in his Narrative of said voyage, pages 32 and 33. 



"While on this subject, I may offer a few remarks respecting the stone, 

 sand, shells, and weed found upon the surface of all ice in this neighborhood. 

 The quantity in which these substances have occurred was really surprising, and 

 puzzled us extremely to account for the manner in which they found theii- way 

 upon the floe. This circumstance has been generally explained by simply at- 

 tributing it to the whole floe having been in immediate contact with the land, 

 enabling the streams to wash, or the winds to blow these substances into the sit- 

 uation in which they are found, in the same manner as they are deposited on 

 bergs found on the shore. But to those who have been eye-witnesses of the fact 

 to the extent in which it here occurred, this mode of explaining it, however plausi- 

 ble at first sight, is by no means satisfactory ; for masses of rock, not less than a 

 hundred pounds in weight, are sometimes observed in the middle of a floe meas- 



S. Ex. 27 13 



