SAND DUNES AND SALT MAESHES 



to form in places a solid shelf,— au " ice-foot." 

 But in most places, during weather like this 

 the ocean is beset with floating cakes of ice, 

 and with newly forming ice which in the heav- 

 ing and chm'ning of the sea appears like 

 grains of sago, and later takes the form of 

 small rounded or many-sided cakes with raised 

 edges, the " slob-ice " of the Labrador coast, 

 the '' pancake ice " of Scorseb3^ Every- 

 where beyond the ice and in the open leads 

 the sea seems to boil and great clouds of mist 

 roll upward, for the warmer water of the sea 

 actuallj^ steams in this arctic weather, and the 

 distant view is obscured. Here are patches 

 and lanes of black water, there, bands of solid 

 floe brilliantly white in the sunlight. Ice- 

 bergs, the most magnificent arctic phenom- 

 ena, once seen, always to be treasured in the 

 memory, do not appear on this coast. It is 

 far too distant from the parent glaciers. 



On one occasion, in Februar}^, when the 

 thermometer was six degrees below zero, and 

 the water was covered with pancake ice, I 

 heard in the still air a sighing, whistling note, 

 an aeoUan-harp-like sound, which appeared 

 to have its source in the heaving, churning 

 ice-cakes. 



34 



