90 BEACH GRASS 



rounded grains as he might imagine but of thin 

 flakes and crystals broken up into small pieces. 

 It is this icy mixture that is left by the receding 

 waves in snowy windrows on the beach, and that 

 serves to build up the ice-wall and fill its hol- 

 lows. One may unexpectedly sink up to the 

 hips in crevasses in the ice-wall filled with the 

 snowy white mass before it is congealed by the 

 cement of freezing water. 



As the cold continues, the flakes freeze to- 

 gether on the water and form ice cakes of all sizes 

 from an inch to several feet and later many yards 

 in diameter, forming veritable floes. The con- 

 stant heave of the sea prevents, at first, the for- 

 mation of an extensive sheet, but these cakes, 

 rubbing against one another, take on a more or 

 less circular outline with elevated edges. This 

 is the well-known pancake ice of Scoresby and 

 other arctic explorers, — the lolly or slob ice of 

 the Labrador Coast. 



On February 3, 1918, the ocean, as far as one 

 could see from the beach, was covered with pan- 

 cake ice with here and there a larger piece of solid 

 floe. On some of these, seals were lying, adding 



