Moss — On Glaciation caused by Sea Ice. 51 



instead of ice, would ha^-e been considered an excellent example of 

 glacier scoring. 



An equally well-grooved ice mass lay frozen into the new floe about 

 seventy yards from our ship's bows and close to the ice-foot. In this 

 instance the grounded floeberg had been all but completely overturned. 

 Three-fourths of the surface exposed above the floe was of clear blue- 

 green ice, worn into the blunt mammillary elevations usual on the under 

 side of old floating ice. The remaining fourth, a space of twenty feet 

 wide by six deep, was, as in the former case, black with mud, present- 

 ing indeed a surface not unlike black marble, and was in every part 

 ■covered by thi'ee sets of well-polished parallel grooves — some of them 

 as much as fourteen inches from ridge to ridge. 



Two sets of the grooves were almost in the same direction, and 

 passed uninterruptedly across the whole width of the ice. The third 

 existed at one end only, and crossed both the others at an angle of 20°. 

 I have no theory to offer as to the source from which the grooving 

 motion was derived : it was evidently continuous ; nothing else could 

 produce such regular grooving twenty feet long. 



If the scratching and furrowing had been confined to the ice alone, 

 no proof of actual abrasion would have been forthcoming; and I would 

 have been obliged to refer you for illustration to an excellent photograph 

 taken for the purpose by Mr. White, an ofiicer of H. M. S. Alert, but 

 which I have been unable to obtain in time for exhibition here, from 

 the London Stereoscopic Company, in whose hands the negative was 

 placed by the Admiralty. 



The scratchings, however, were not confined to the ice alone, but 

 passed continuously across the surfaces of a number of stones firmly 

 imbedded in the ice and projecting from it in proportion to their hard- 

 ness. These were chipped out, and I have now the pleasure of exhibit- 

 ing them. You will observe that several of them show grooves and 

 scratches, Avhich, if their true source had not been known, would have 

 been considered the unmistakable handiwork of a glacier. 



In order to avoid any doubt as to the pelagic character of the ice, 

 its chlorine was estimated, and its least salt part was found to contain 

 O-lOl per cent. — a quantity altogether beyond the limits of land ice, 

 and close to the average of the Polar floes around it. 



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