ASPECT OF THE ICY SEA. 
101 
sea, are constantly at work upon the frozen masses, 
and they become undermined and eaten away along 
the edges as they drift southwards towards the warmer 
water flowing north from the Gulf Stream, which 
seems to find a limit to its force about this latitude. 
Spreading out like a fan, it interdigitates with colder 
surface currents which flow ice-laden from the north¬ 
east. The drift also has its effect on the floating ice, 
driving it with sudden force, and grinding each block 
against its immediate neighbour ; then the brittle floor 
soon gets crushed and shattered in every direction. 
The newly-exposed fracture glints in the sunlight with 
all the iridescence of an opal—delicate greens and 
pure blues reflect the light in brilliant prismatic hues. 
The sparkling water beneath throws off these refracted 
colours, and the pure snow above serves as a foil to 
the diamond-like coruscations. Every moment some 
new charm is added to the splendour of the prospect, 
and were it not from a sense of danger it is almost 
impossible to shake off, the spectator might spend 
many an hour in unsatisfied contemplation of a scene 
so novel and suggestive. Here is a block of ice eaten 
away by the rapid thawing process of the higher 
temperature in which it floats, until it assumes the 
form of the knarled stem and riven roots of some old 
forest tree overturned by a storm ; there is the finely- 
