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SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



annually in almost all undisturbed situations. When the thawing commences, 

 the water lodges in the cavities formed on floes by the hummocks, making the 

 numerous pools we see in the summer, gradually finding its way com- 

 pletely through the ice, and thus, at length, serving again to separate the 

 original masses, or hummocks. This is one, among the many instances, in 

 which Nature may be observed wonderfully to adapt her means of dissolving 

 the ice to those she employs in its production, thereby preventing any 

 undue accumulation of it in the polar regions of the earth. 



While on this subject, I may offer a few remarks respecting the stones, sand, 

 shells, and weed, found upon the surface of all the ice in this neighbourhood. 

 The quantity in which these substances here occurred was really surprising, 

 and puzzled us extremely to account for the manner in which they found 

 their way upon the floes. This circumstance has been generally explained 

 by simply attributing it to the whole floe having been in immediate contact 

 with the land, enabling the streams to wash, or the winds to blow, these 

 substances into the situation in which they are found, in the same manner 

 as they are deposited on bergs formed on the shore. But to those who have 

 been eye-witnesses of the fact, to the extent in which it here occurred, this 

 mode of explaining it, however plausible at first sight, is by no means satis- 

 factory ; for masses of rock, not less than a hundred pounds in weight, are 

 sometimes observed in the middle of a floe, measuring half a mile, or more, 

 each way, and of which the whole surface is more or less covered with 

 smaller stones, sand, and shells. To suppose the wind strong enough to 

 blow these substances such a distance would be absurd ; nor is the supposi- 

 tion of their having been washed there scarcely more probable, for as a floe 

 of ice must float considerably above the surface of the sea, it is not easy to 

 conceive how it can be overflowed, and much less how heavy stones can be 

 carried half a mile along it. It has been suggested that the floe may be 

 held down by its firm cementation to the shore, while the water from the 

 land above it rushes in a torrent along its upper surface. This, however, 

 is contrary to experience, which shews that, long before the streams on the 

 land are sufficient to effect this, the ice next the shore is completely thawed, 

 and detached from the beach, and therefore at liberty to float in the natural 

 way. 



The only explanation of this fact that I can suggest is, that as it is generally 

 found to be the case to the greatest extent upon the " hummocky" floes, the 

 substances may have been deposited upon each mass of ice when separate, 



