grainy ice areas are caused in the region of the fast ice, which it seems, are polished somewhat 

 from the friction of the masses of snow which move along it during snowstorms. In such areas, 

 there can be observed often on the surface of the ice pancake and frozen masses of snow appearing 

 as lumps or strips, just as they appeared on freezing. Particularly spacious areas of grainy ice 

 were observed by the members of the Zarya expedition in April 1903 on the Gulf of Buorknayaya. 

 It was difficult both for dogs and deer to run along this ice. 



An observation which corroborates the wind migrations of the snow on the ice was made by 

 Buinitskii on 13 December 1938 at the time of the drift of the Sedov. Here is what he says: 



"The efflorescence of tracks occurs interestingly: the snow is swept around the tracks, and 

 the snow remains under the track and is raised over the surrounding surface, preserving exactly 

 the outline and the dimensions of the track. The 'growth' of tracks can be observed over the foot- 

 step of a man as well as over that of a dog; the tracks of dogs effloresce significantly higher (2 

 times) than a man's. Here and there, they are similar to a row of very accurate cylinders which 

 reach heights of 3.5 cm. This growth of tracks does not occur at all universally." 



The snow, falling on hummock fields or transported to them with the flat fields, is stopped 

 here, being trapped in the spaces between the box and forming snow drifts and zastrugi. Windward 

 declinations of the snow drifts are strongly packed by the wind. In figure 98 the plans of snow dep- 

 osition are shown with various forms of obstacles which are encountered by the wind. In figure 98, 

 attention is turned to the snow pack, which is formed behind the obstacle which has its slowing side 

 toward the wind and to the characteristic wind hollow before an obstacle with its steep slope to the 

 wind. 



Figure 98. Whirling eddy and drifting snow on contact with a wedge-shaped obstacle. 



In nature, on sea ices where hummocks with their diverse forms and inclinations are the 

 basic obstacles for the migration of snow, the form of the snow drifts is not any less diverse. 



The power of the snow drift understandably depends on the quantity of the deposition. Thus, 

 during the wintering of the Zarya at the Taimyr Strait, snow drifts reached a height of about 5 m. 

 The ice sagged as a result of the weight of the snow and already at the beginning of March, water 

 protruded along the Zarya from beneath the ice. 



At the time of the wintering of that same Zarya in the Laptev Sea (in the Kotel'nyy Bay of 

 Nerpal and on the island of Kotel'nyy) where the amount of deposition was significantly less than in 

 the northeastern part of the Kara Sea, the snow drifts were also significantly less. 



In the Central Arctic Basin, where the depositions are already less, the sizes of the snow 

 drifts are not large. Thus, according to measurements of the Sedov which were carried out at 

 the end of March and at the beginning of April 1939, the height of the snow in the snow drifts ranged 

 from 30 to 140 cm and on flat places, on an average, from 4 to 15 cm. 



275 



