VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
17 
we met with many pieces of heavy^ drift-ice ; and 
soon after, a streak of light, resembling the dawn- 
ing of approaching day, but without its redness, was 
visible in the air just above the horizon. This 
appearance which is termed an ice^blink, proceeds 
from an extensive space, or compact aggregation 
of ice, which occasions the rays of light, that strike 
its snowy surface, to be reflected into the superin- 
cumbent air, where they become visible ; hence, 
when the ice-blink occurs under the most favoura- 
ble circumstances, it affords to the eye, a beautiful 
and perfect map of the ice, twenty or thirty miles 
beyond the limit of direct vision, but more or less 
distinct, in proportion as the air is clear or hazy. 
The ice-blink not only shews the figure of the ice, 
but enables the experienced observer to judge, 
whether it, as thus pictured, be field or packed 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 packed, is more purely white ; and of bay ice, 
greyish. The land, on account of its snowy cover- 
ing, likewise occasions a blink, which is yellowish, 
and not much unlike that produced by the field 
ice. The nearer we approached to the north, the 
more numerous were the pieces of ice^ until the 
ocean was covered with them. The wind still 
blowing into the ice, and finding ourselves embayed, 
* Pieces that are of a great depth in the water, and dangerous 
for a ship to strike. 
C 
