Lyi (Rag Si EL PAG 
to fifty yards in extent, to four or five; the thicknefs of the larger pieces was 
about thirty feet under water; and the greateft height of others above, about 
fixteen or eighteen. It was tranfparent, except on the furface, which was a little 
porous, and often very rugged: the reft compact as a wall. At times it muft 
pack ; for the mountanous ice which the Coffack Morkoff afcended (fee p. c.) 
muft have been of that nature. The deftruction of the ice is not effected by the 
fun, in a climate where fogs reign in far greater proportion than the folar beams ; 
neither will the ftreights of Berinc permit the efcape of quantity fufficient to 
clear the fea.of its vaft load. It muft, in a little time, become wholly filed with 
it, was it not for the rage of the winds, which dafhes the pieces together, breaks 
and grinds them into minute parts, which foon melt, and refolve into their ori- 
ginal element. - 
The animals of this fea are very few, and may be reduced to the Polar Bear, 
N° 18; the Walrus, N° 71; and Seals. The firft does not differ from thofe of 
other arctic countries: it is beautifully engraven in tab. LXXIII. of the Voyage: 
Amidft the extraordinary fcenery in tab. LII. is given the only accurate figure of 
the Valrus I have ever feen. I cannot but fufpect it to be a variety of the fpecies 
found in the Spitzbergen feas. ‘The tufks are more flender, and have a flight dif- 
tinguifhing flexure: the whole animal is alfo much lefs, The length of one 
(not indeed the largeft) was only nine feet four inches ; its greateft circumference 
feven feet ten; weight, exclufive of the entrails, about eleven hundred pounds. 
They lay on the ice by thoufands; and in the foggy weather cautioned our navi- 
gators, by their roaring, from running foul of it. “They are ufually feen fleeping, 
but never without fome centinels to give notice of approaching danger: thefe awa- 
kened the next to them, they their ‘neighbors, till the whele herd was roufed. 
Thefe animals are the objects of chace with the T/chut/ki, who eat the flefh, and 
cover their boats and hovels with the fkins. Whales abound in this fea. Fifh, 
the food of Seals, and partly of the polar Bears, muft be found here, notwith- 
ftanding they efcaped the notice of the navigators. Shells and fea-plants, the 
ood of the Walrus, cannot be wanting. 
Many fpecies of birds (which will occur in their place) were feen traverfing 
this fea. Geefe and Ducks were obferved migrating fouthward in Auguf? ; whether 
from their breeding-place in a circum-polar land, or whether from the probably 
far-extending land of America, is not to be determined. Drift-wood was very 
feldom feen here. ‘Two trees, about three feet in girth, with their roots, were 
ence obferved, but without bark or branches ; a proof that they had been brought 
from afar, and left naked by their conteft with the ice and elements. 
The fea, from the fouth of Berine’s ftreights to the crefcent of ifles between 
x 2 Afia 
CLIX 
ANIMALS» 
Fism. 
Birps, 
