VOYAGE OF THE ‘ECLIPSE. 7 
“old” ice floating in ordinary circumstances in clear and 
unstained water. , 
With these facts before us, we can have little difficulty in 
understanding the formation of ‘‘ rotten ice,” and its presence 
in the §.E. pack. That part of the Greenland Sea, consisting 
for the most part of an area of still water, and whose surface 
waters are usually so deeply stained with the characteristic colour 
of vegetable organisms, bounded on the east by the coast 
of Spitzbergen, and on the west by the ever-fluctuating eastern 
margin of the ‘“ west ice,” known to the whalers as the 
** Spitzbergen land water,” having during a period of severe frost 
become frozen over with sheets or “‘floes”’ of young ice, and this 
ice having become broken up by the action of swell into the 
form known as “ pancake ice,” and the ‘‘ pans” having become 
separated, would, as already explained, become eaten into, and 
stained with diatoms round their line of flotation. We have 
next to suppose another spell of cold weather; the pieces of 
“pancake” ice, separated somewhat from one another, become 
reunited by the formation of additional ice, the whole forming 
a “‘congealed” pack, with here and there pieces of ice which, 
if crashed into by a ship or otherwise broken, would appear 
diatom-stained in the manner already described. With these 
conclusions the observations of Scoresby entirely agree, but from 
Dr. Robert Brown, who investigated the subject (‘ Trans. Bot. 
Soc. of Edinburgh,’ vol. ix., pp. 244—252), I venture to differ. 
Dr. Brown, having found a number of pits on the under surface 
of the ice containing and formed by collections of diatoms, 
arrives at the conclusion that these minute organisms, by 
melting the ice, play an important part in the economy of 
these seas. Now, so far as I have observed, the discoloration 
is restricted to recently formed ice, occurring in parts of the 
sea usually open, the ocean, where permanently covered by 
ice, being always clear and blue, and unstained by diatoms ; 
also the discolouring matter, when present, occupies a posi- 
tion round the margin of a horizontal stratum agreeing with 
the plane of flotation, and bounded in that plane by the outline 
of the ice. 
May 15.—Lat. 79° 50’, long. 5°15’ EH. Water dark green ; tem- 
perature at the surface, 29°. Auks and Divers very numerous; 
also many Narwhals, floe Seals, and a few Bears. A male 
