IX.] 
DECEPTIVE APPEARANCE OF THE ICE. 
427 
very thick crust of ice^ and the drift-ice came closer and closer 
together. It thus became impossible to continue the course 
which we had taken. We therefore turned towards the land, 
and at 6 o’clock p.m., after various bends in the ice and a few 
concussions against the pieces of ice that barred our way, again 
reached the ice-free channel, eight to twelve kilometres broad, 
next the land. While we lay a little way in among the drift- 
ice fields we could see no sign of open water, but it appeared as 
BEAKER SPONGES. 
From the sea oft' the mouth of the Koljuna. 
if the compact ice extended all the way to land, a circumstance 
which shows how careful the navigator ought to be in express¬ 
ing an opinion as to the nature of the pack beyond the imme¬ 
diate neighbourhood of the vessel. The temperature of the air, 
which in the ice-field had sunk to — 3°, now rose at once to 
+ 4°T, while that of the water rose from — l°-2 to + 3°‘5, 
and its salinity fell from 2-4 to 1'3 per cent. All showed that 
Ave had iioav come into the current of the Kolyma, which from 
