THE BEACH IN WINTER 91 



to the arctic character of the scene. On one 

 piece of the floe were two seals and one splendid 

 great black-backed gull. Lanes of steel-blue water 

 intersected the snowy surface, and in these, red- 

 breasted mergansers sported, pushing the smaller 

 ice cakes out of their way as they swam. As 

 I was watching a flock of seventy-five of these 

 ducks, with their iridescent green heads and 

 coral red bills, all adult males, — for nearly all the 

 the brown-headed females and young winter in 

 the South, — they laboriously rose from the water, 

 leaving behind them an oblong patch of dark 

 water. There was no wind and the ground swell 

 was so nearly flattened by the ice that but tiny 

 waves broke on the beach. In bits of open water 

 close to shore one could see the ice coating of 

 the beach extending out, beautifully green as 

 seen through the clear sea water. 



But perhaps the most interesting arctic phe- 

 nomenon of intensely cold weather at the sea- 

 shore is the mist that arises from the sea water 

 — the frost-rime of the older arctic explorers. 

 Captain William Scoresby in his ''Journal of a 

 voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery" pub- 



