THE ICE COVER OF THE ARCTIC SEA, WITH A 

 GENETIC CLASSIFICATION OF SEA ICE* 



N. A. Transehe 



Classes of Ice Composing the Ice Cover 



The ice cover of the Arctic Sea may be considered to consist of 

 three classes of sea ice arranged in two concentric belts around a 



Fig. I— Map of the Arctic Basin showing the distribution of the three classes of ice composing the 

 ice cover of the Arctic Sea (fast-ice, pack ice, and Arctic Pack) during the winter three-quarters of the 

 year, together with some related phenomena (see legend). Scale, 1:53,000,000. 



*In the present discussion the writer's chief inspiration has frankly been Kolchak's "The Ice 

 of the Kara and Siberian Seas" (cited in full at the beginning of the next article and as "Kolchak" 

 throughout the present article). The views and generalizations in that work have seemed to him to 

 merit presentation in a Western European language, for which reason also a whole chapter from that 

 work has been translated in the next article. The present article, however, should not be considered 

 a literal rendering of Kolchak. In addition to containing a classification of sea ice for which the writer 

 is alone responsible, it attempts to present his own views on the background of Kolchak's work and 

 the more recent observations that were not available to Kolchak at the time he wrote (probably 

 1 902-1 903). 



91 



