178 GLACIOLOGY 



later in the year, in April 1908, shows in the foreground hea'Vy snow-drift at Black- 

 sand Beach. Above it are some small dark caverns, from the sloping entrance wall 

 of which there hang a number of club-shaped icicles. It is difficult to understand 

 exactly why these icicles are club-shaped, unless it be that, as sea water is a mixture 

 of several solutions, each having a freezing-point of its own, as the result of progres- 

 sive freezing the mineral matter contained in the original sea water becomes more 

 and more concentrated in the residual water. As the freezing-point of these con- 

 centrated brines is lowered, we observed that the tips of the icicles were nearly 

 always moist and sticky unless the temperature fell below 0° F. Below that 

 temperature they were usually dry and free from any of the brine solution unfrozen. 

 The blizzard winds drove innumerable snowflakes before it, which impinged on the 

 brine-tipped sticky ends of the stalactites and were arrested in their flight, and thus 

 by degrees built up a club-shaped end to the stalactite. A similar phenomenon, but 

 on a still more striking scale, is shown on Plate LII. Fig. 1. This was taken in 

 mid-winter under the overhanging eaves of the ice -foot a few feet above sea-level. 

 It will be noticed that the icicles terminate there in feet-like forms, some resembling 

 the hooves of horses, others human feet. We observed that the toes were always 

 directed against the prevailing wind. Evidently these feet have been built out to 

 windward by the action of the snow-bringing air currents from the south-east. 

 The scale is sliown by the height of the two hurricane lamps, by means of which 

 the photograph was obtained after an exposure of 20 minutes with full aperture and 

 special rapid plate. 



On Plate L. Fig. 1 some remarkable structures in ice and drift snow are shown 

 resembling the forefeet of horses. The explanation of their origin is similar to that 

 of the human-like feet in the previous figure. 



After the formation of the early sea ice in autunui, during March and April, 

 blizzard winds, combined with rise and fall of the tide, served to break off sheets of sea 

 ice formed at the base of the ice-foot, but as the temperature continued to fall, these 

 broken fragments became recemented. Little by little the cliff of the ice-foot, as the 

 winter advanced, became levelled up by snow-drift. In cases where the ice-foot was 

 in the lee of the prevalent wind the drift snow built out a beautiful cornice like that 

 seen in Plate LI. Fig. 1. We observed in several places that, where these snow- 

 drifts were piled up against the ice-foot, where the latter faced the prevalent wind, 

 the tendency of the wind was to scoop out a hollow at the foot of the snow-drift, so 

 as to re-develop the ice-foot cliff". This groove, or fosse, is to be distinguished from 

 the moats formed by actual thawing, where sea ice or snow is brought within the 

 action of radiant heat emanating from dark rocks exposed to the du-ect rays of the 

 sun. The fosse in this case is due to a strong back eddy of the wind. 



Plate LI. Fig. 2 shows the appearance of a large and ancient ice-foot at 

 the northern end of Blacksand Beach. The cliff of the ice-foot is here formed 

 almost entirely of drift snow alternating with a considerable amount of fragments of 



