88 BEACH GRASS 



water was creeping nearer to me over the icy 

 beach, but hidden from view under the soft slush 

 floating on top, and I suddenly found my 

 moccasined feet in the freezing mixture. The 

 ice-wall, smooth and undercut, was unclimable 

 except with ice axe and creepers, but a dash of a 

 hundred yards brought me to a broken place in 

 the wall where I easily ascended to safety. 



At times the upper edge of the beach is covered 

 thick with flattened ovoids and spheres of ice 

 from a few inches to a foot or two in diameter. 

 Cobblestone ice is an appropriate name for this 

 formation, as it is brought about by the rubbing 

 together of ice cakes thrown around and rolled 

 up and down the beach by the surf. The process 

 is the same as in the much slower formation of 

 cobblestones out of broken fragments of rock. 

 On one occasion I found part of the sea-wall built 

 up of these round pebbles of ice, some small, 

 some large, all tightly cemented together with 

 frozen sea-spray. It was a perfect conglomer- 

 ate or puddingstone, similar in formation to the 

 conglomerate made of beach pebbles in former 

 ages. 



