SHAL AND WHALE FISHERY, 1897. 73 
the North Atlantic has been the most remarkable on record, and 
it happens that an unusual number of observers were present to 
report on its phenomenal absence which has characterized this 
very exceptional season. In my Notes for the year 1887, I 
mentioned that Capt. David Gray’s experience led him to the 
conclusion that there is a certain periodicity in the movements 
of the ice in the Greenland Seas, the eastern or western limit 
of its margin reaching its maximum about every five years alter- 
nately ; so that every tenth year may be expected to produce an 
*“‘ east-ice year,’ and vice versd. ‘The year 1881 was an “‘ east-ice 
year,” that is, the ice extended far to the eastward from the east 
coast of Greenland. Capt. Gray, in a communication published 
in the Proc. Roy. Geo. Soc. for 1881, p. 740, with map, recorded 
this remarkable eastward extension of the ice, and made some 
remarks with regard to its probable cause. The year 1886 was 
so far a “‘ west-ice year,” the ice being close packed on the east 
coast of Greenland (that is, on the west side of the Greenland 
Sea) that there was no hope of penetrating it in search of 
Whales ; Capt. Gray therefore, ever willing to add exploration to 
his legitimate business when possible, attempted unsuccessfully 
to visit Franz Josef Land, but met with very little obstruction until 
he reached 86° 44’ H. longitude, in the parallel of 75° (Dr. Robert 
Gray, Zool. 1887, p. 124). It was not till the next year (1887), 
however, that the ice receded to its farthest west. In 1891 there 
was again an enormous accumulation of ice off the east coast of 
Greenland, extending far away to the eastward. According to 
Capt. Gray’s theory, therefore, the year 1897 should be a maxi- 
mum “ west-ice year,’ and such has been the case to a remark- 
able extent; where in 1881 Capt. Gray forced his way three 
hundred miles through floe-ice into the Spitzbergen land water, 
in the past season the Greenland whalers encountered no ob- 
struction, and the ‘ Balena’ found no difficulty in passing round 
the south of Spitzbergen through the Barents Sea to Franz 
Josef Land, where she cruised amongst the islands of the archi- 
pelago, and hunted Walruses in lat. 81° N., accompanied by the 
‘ Active’ and the ‘ Diana.’ | 
All the reports which we have from the eastern polar seas 
this season, and they have been unusually numerous, extending 
over a wide area—the Dundee whalers in the Greenland and 
