ii8 



SEA AND LAND 



been observed to run agrountl in water of this depth. These 

 o-reat variations in the proportions of ber^;s and floes afford 

 a fair presumption that there is some essential difference in 

 the origin of these two classes of ice-islands. A glance at 



II"" 



%^ 



TtT^ 



View on the Coast of Greenland 

 Showing small bergs intermingled with floe ice, with polar bears in foreground. 



the processes by which ice is made in high latitudes will show 

 us that this h)pothesis is amply justified. 



When the Arctic explorers or the whalers make their way 

 to the fringe of small settlements which lie upon the western 

 margin of Greenland — the only part of that vast area which 

 is ever indeed green — they usually begin to encounter the 

 floe-ice, and as they go northward it increases in thickness 

 and in the extent to which it obstructs the surface of the sea, 

 so that the ships are compelled to creep through the rifts 



