552 Dr. E. L. Moss. Observations on Arctic Sea-water and Ice. 



tions on a star of 3 J magnitude 2° 15' from the horizon) were swept 

 off into a clean stoppered bottle, and brought on board the ship and 

 melted, a very small, but quite distinct, sediment formed, consisting 

 of quartose particles, a few red grains, and very minute opaque 

 nodules ; thus fairly representing the chief constituents of the ice-dust. 



I have to regret the incompleteness and absence of pre-arranged 

 order in the observations that were made, but most of the subjects 

 were altogether unforeseen, and it was necessary to take them up and 

 make the best of them just as they presented themselves. 



My notes have perhaps little bearing on the place of growth of the 

 so-called "polar floes ;" any hypothesis on that subject must give full 

 weight to their wide distribution on both the oceanic and littoral con- 

 fines of the unknown area ; but the stratification of the floes unmis- 

 takeably indicates that the precipitation of the region where they form 

 accumulates where it falls. The "conglomerate" sometimes under- 

 lying it tells of slow lateral removal by fission and intermediate freezing, 

 while the " blue-topped" floes and the wasting grounded ice mark a 

 region where temperature gathered in summer by the naked land 

 releases the precipitation and restores it to the sea in the shape of out- 

 flowing arctic currents of low specific gravity. 



