WAEM DAY. 159 



also jammed too tiglitly together for boats 

 readily to penetrate amongst it. The vast ac- 

 cumulation of drift-ice in the Spitzbergen seas 

 consists partly of fiat tabular slabs of all sizes, 

 from that of an acre downwards, which have 

 composed part of the winter's growth on the 

 shallow bays and gulfs of the coast, and partly 

 of rough irregular masses which have become 

 detached from the ice-cliffs of the glaciers. 

 Some of these latter pieces I have observed to 

 be carrying large stones, which, by the way, 

 I have frequently mistaken for seals, and very 

 many of them are charged with such quan- 

 tities of dark-coloured mud or clay, that the 

 sea is in places sometimes discoloured for 

 many miles around by their washings. 



This was one of the finest and w^armest days 

 I ever knew in Spitzbergen, the thermometer 

 was 55° in the cabin, and in the sun it was 

 actually hot. The summer's warmth has had 

 a perceptible effect upon the ice, much of 

 which we observe to be undermined and honey- 

 combed, or " rotten," as the sailors call it ; it 

 always seems to decay fastest " between wind 

 and water," so that enormous caverns get 

 excavated in the sides of the bergs. 



Nothing can exceed the beauty of these 



