108 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



of the pack had tossed up fragments in the break-up of 

 the floes, to freeze fast where they happened to fall. 



Seen from aloft, the coloring was very beautiful. 

 Many spots and hummocks were soiled a yellowish 

 brown apparently by contact with land or the bottom or 

 dirt-strewn by the wind. At this late period of the 

 summer the constant lapping of waves had eroded the 

 water line of the cakes so that the snowy upper crust 

 overhung the water often for many yards, and would 

 treacherously crumble if one stepped on it. The wide 

 forefoot of the ice under water, which naturally did not 

 cave away after erosion of the top, shimmered a delicate 

 green through the sea, in contrast to the deep blue of the 

 ocean, and many fantastically carved caves in the siu*- 

 face ice glowed with a wonderful ultramarine blue against 

 the pure white of the untarnished covering. 



But if the sun's rays failed to penetrate a gloomy mist 

 overhead, the whole aspect changed. It lost the bright- 

 ness and beauty, and put on a most sinister face. Gray 

 and dull white prevailed; the green became cold and 

 lifeless, the blue turned to grayish black; then the 

 exquisite grottoes gave forth no luster; they were simply 

 dark spots in the ice. The leaden sky pitilessly seemed 

 to hang over and to forbid us. 



So quickly as the sun, beaming through or sulking 

 behind his mantle of fog, could change in an instant the 

 whole meaning of the ice, so rapid were the leaps of all 

 our human spirits, as chance laid one incident or another 

 before us. Little things, too, raised and depressed us, 

 for many little things were fatal in so short a season as 

 we had for our ambitions. 



The first bright day out from St. Michael was blotted 

 by the gale forcing us south of St. Lawrence Island. 



