THE MIDDLE ICE. 
75 
its character of a central barrier. Not only its condi- 
tion, but its general extent, varies with the season. It 
is well known to the most observant of the whalers 
that the winds of the early spring, or " breaking-up" 
period, almost enable them to determine its position 
ill advance. A preponderance of northwest winds will 
drive it from the American coast ; or the northeasters 
of the spring and summer will often distribute it into 
long straggling bands, that intrude upon certain por- 
tions of the upper coast, as at Haroe, Svartehuk, and 
the Duck Islands. 
The axis of Baffin's Bay, according to our own ob- 
servations, which add nearly thirty miles to the width 
of Davis' Straits at Cape Walsingham, is from the 
north by east. The great bodies of ice, which enter 
this bay from Lancaster Sound and the northern es- 
tuaries of Jones and Smith, are undoubtedly impressed 
by the earth's rotation as they proceed to the south, thus 
causing an accumulation on the coasts of North Amer- 
ica, which augments with the increasing radius of rota- 
tion, while the Greenland side is left completely open. 
As we advance to the north, this passage becomes 
more circumscribed and uncertain, so that the ice is gen- 
erally encountered by the whalers before they reach the 
70th parallel. When, however, they pass to the north 
of latitude 73° 50' they enter upon a region of nearly 
perpetual ice. Here the middle pack intrudes upon 
the shores, and fills that large horse-shoe indentation 
which is known as Melville Bay. This term is vague- 
ly applied by the whalers to a sweep of coast extend- 
ing from the Devil's Thumb, or Wilcox Point, to Capes 
Dudley Diggs and York. It comprises on the charts 
the several bays of Prince Regent, Melville, Duneira, 
and Allison. 
