CHAPTER II 
ICE AND ICEBERGS 
A knowledge of the nomenclature of polar phenomena 
is an essential preliminary to the study of the history of 
Arctic adventure. We must know the meanings of words 
which constantly recur and which form, as it were, the 
dialect of our subject. We begin then with the names 
for different forms and appearances of polar ice. 
It used to be thought that ice could only be formed 
in creeks and inlets of the coast. It is now known that 
young ice forms on the surface of the open sea, and 
thickens into dense masses, where it is not disturbed by 
waves. Young ice then is the thin film first formed on 
the surface of the sea, when the temperature is sufficiently 
low in the autumn. When it becomes rather thicker it 
is called bay ice. In a ruffled sea the pieces of bay ice 
strike each other on every side, becoming rounded and 
having the edges turned up. This is pancake ice. 
In a year, under favouring circumstances, the ice 
attains a thickness of six feet, in two years of nine feet. 
Sometimes masses of ice under-run each other, and the 
result is a thickness of 20 to 50 and even 100 feet. 
A field is an expanse of ice of such extent that its 
termination is not bounded by the horizon. A floe is 
the same as a field except that its whole extent can be 
seen. Floe bergs, occurring on the northern shores of the 
polar ocean, are large masses of sea ice, broken off from 
ancient floes of great thickness, and forced upon the 
shore. Ground ice is formed on rivers or shallow inlets 
while the sea, as a whole, remains unfrozen. Land ice 
or the land floe is ice attached to the land. 
Field ice varies in thickness from 15 to 20 feet. On its 
surface there is a deposit of several feet of snow which 
melts in the height of summer, forming numerous fresh- 
