AS OBSERVED IN THE WEDDELL SEA. 
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crystals (as already described) set horizontally. This is a feature first noted by 
Ferrar, and applies only to the uppermost \ \ inch ; the vertical arrangement of 
the plates and grouping into bundles below the upper layer and throughout the 
rest of the ice have been noticed by all observers, and described and figured in 
detail, particularly by Drygalski. This is the structure often referred to as platy 
or fibrous. 
To the impression, however, given by Ferrar, that the upper layer is always 
formed of horizontally arranged plates, exception must be taken. A note of 
April 19 says “that from the edge of the old-ice thin narrow wedges (finger-like) 
extend out into the black-ice ; these wedges have their apex against the old-ice and 
broaden as they go outwards, often reaching a length of 6 inches. They appear 
even darker than the surrounding black-ice, and the reason seems to be this : that 
they are made up almost entirely of plates set vertically.” In the spaces between 
the wedges, however, the plates at the surface were set horizontally, reflected up 
the light a little, and did not appear so dark, therefore, as the wedges. Similar 
structures were frequently observed, and are apparently always to be expected 
where the water is bounded by a wall of old-ice at much lower temperature, from 
whose edge the young sheet can grow out. On May 2 a sketch was made of such 
a thin sheet in active process of growth (figs. 1 and 2). 
Three bands, characterised by separate structures, were distinguishable. First 
of all, an irregular network 5 to 6 inches broad ran along the immediate edge of the 
old floe ; then came a strip about 1 foot broad of radiating black wedges separated 
ftom each other by lighter interspaces ; and still farther out was a third strip made 
up of an irregular mass of plates not yet systematically arranged on to the wedges. 
The second figure shows how irregular the wedges are, both in shape and in relative 
arrangement, and how the term “ wedge” is simply one of convenience. 
In the wedges the ice-plates are arranged vertically, or in an almost vertical 
position ; in the interspaces horizontally arranged plates shade downwards into a 
