THE FLOE-ICE. 317 



least 250 feet below the water-line, are often jagged and 

 angular, though constantly stopping the course of masses 

 of ice impelled four to six miles an hour by the joint 

 action of tides, currents, and winds? No bowlders, or 

 gravel, or mud were seen upon any of the bergs or 

 masses of shore-ice. They had dropped all burdens of this 

 nature nearer their points of detachment in the high arctic 

 regions. The bergs all bore evidence of having been 

 repeatedly overturned as they were borne along in the 

 current. Thr floe-ice was hummocky, which is a strong 

 proof of its having come from open straits in the polar 

 regions, the masses looking as if having been frozen and 

 refrozen, jammed together, and then piled atop of each 

 other by currents and winds long before appearing upon 

 this coast ; while the bergs exhibited old water-lines pre- 

 senting different angles to the present water-level. The 

 only discoloration noticed was probably caused by seals 

 resting upon and soiling the surface. One bowlder was 

 noticed by a member of the party resting upon an ice- 

 berg off Cape Harrison in August. 



This huge area of floating ice, embracing so many 

 thousands of square miles, was of greater extent, and re- 

 mained longer upon the coast in 1864 than for forty 

 years previous. It was not only pressed upon the coast 

 by the normal action of the Labrador and Greenland 

 currents which, in consequence of the rotatory motion 

 of the earth, tended to force the ice in a southwesterly 

 direction, but the presence of the ice caused the constant 

 passage of cooler currents of air from the sea over the 

 ice upon the heated land, giving rise during the present 

 season to a constant succession of northeasterly winds 

 from March until early in August, which further served 



