322 



GREENLAND OR POLAR ICE<, 



portion as the air is hazy. The ice-blink not 6il° 

 Ij shews the figure of the ice, but enables the eii- 

 perienced observer to judge, whether the ice thus 

 pictured be field or pafcked ice : if the latter, 

 whether it be compact or open, bay or heavy ice. 

 Field ice affords the most lucid blink, accompanied 

 with a tinge of yellow ; that of packs is more 

 purely white ; and of bay ice, greyish. The 

 land, on account of its snowy covering, likewise 

 occasions a blink, which is yellowish, and not 

 much unlike that produced by the ice of fields. 



4. The ice operates as a powerful equaliser of 

 temperature. In the 80th degree of north lati- 

 tude, at the edge of the main body of ice, with a 

 northerly gale of wind, the cold is not sensibly 

 greater than in the 70th degree, Under similar cir- 

 cumstances. 



5. The reciprocal action of the ice and the sea 

 on each other, is particularly striking, which ever 

 may have the ascendancy. If, on the one hand, 

 the ice be arranged with a certain form of aggre- 

 gation, and in due solidity, it becomes capable of 

 resisting the turbulence of the ocean, and can 

 with but little comparative diminution or break- 

 ing, suppress its most violent surges. Its resistance 

 is so effectual, that ships sheltered by it, rarely 

 find the sea disturbed by swells. On the other 

 hand, the most formidable fields yield to the 

 slightest grown swell, and become disrupted into 



