COAST ICE 159 



bedded in stratified deposits very far from the place where they 

 were torn from their parent ledges. 



Coast Ice Deposits. — In high latitudes with intensely cold winters, 

 great fields of ice (the ice-foot) are formed by the freezing of sea- 

 water along the shore. The ice-foot becomes loaded with great 

 masses of rock, part of which is thrown down from overhanging 

 cliffs by the action of frost, part picked up from the shore-line by 

 the ice forming around it. In summer the coast ice breaks up and 

 floats away with its load of blocks and boulders, distributing them 

 over the sea-bottom just as icebergs do. In storms great masses 

 of coast ice are often driven on the shore, where they may pile up 

 to heights of fifty feet or more, carrying some of the boulders 

 above the levels at which they were picked up. The coast of 

 Labrador is covered for long distances with boulders thus trans- 

 ported, as are many other Arctic shores. Great masses of rock 

 are thus transported in the Baltic, and the divers report that in 

 the Copenhagen Sound the sunken wrecks of vessels are covered 

 with ice-borne blocks. 



