98 
CURRENTS. 
color, the shades varying from a rose-pink to a de- 
cided red. For a long time I supposed these reflected 
images to he real, till one day the captain, calling my 
attention to this “ red ice,” thrust a boat-hook at it, and 
cried out that it was a reflection. This reflected im- 
age is generally very well defined, and beneath it there 
is sometimes a second image of a bluish tinge. The 
explanation is at once suggested by the fact. 
The movements of this aggregated plain upon itself 
are even more incapable of analysis than the great 
general laws of its drift. 
1 spent many days in trying to determine the sur- 
face currents by the movements of the acalephse, es- 
pecially the clios, in the leads ; but the disturbing in- 
fluences of the floes moving upon each other prevented 
any reliable deductions. Camphor floats were equally 
deceptive, probably from the same cause. 
I found, however, that there existed in nearly every 
case a second current, some one or two fathoms be- 
low the first, and that the upper of them generally 
followed the direction of the wind ; so that I regarded 
it at last as a tolerable index of the surface drift. The 
second or inferior current is more difficult to explain 
by rule. It is influenced, of course, by the shape of 
the floes, their various deflecting angles, the degrees 
of resistance they exert, as determined by their weight 
and mass, and no doubt by other causes of which we 
are ignorant. 
Taken in connection with the great general move- 
ment of the pack, these currents form a complicated 
problem of high practical interest to those who navi- 
gate in the ice. But its solution must he reserved for 
scientific men. Much as I respect the ice-masters, the 
Greenland pilots as they are termed, who have devoted 
their lives to its practical study, I confess that I am al- 
