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DISSOLUTION OF BAY-ICE. 201 
we were fully justified, being always prepared to 
attack any whale that might chance to appear. 
The ice that occupied these western inlets, prin¬ 
cipally consisted of thin sheets or floes, apparently 
the product of the preceding winter. Such of the 
ice as yet remained was in a state of rapid disso¬ 
lution ; and, w'lierever it had been fully exposed 
to the solar action, it had already disappeared. 
Thus in Hurry’s Inlet,—which, lying direct¬ 
ly north and south, is exposed to the most 
powerful action of the sun, about the meridian, 
and also receives an extraordinary influence from 
the morning and afternoon beams, that are re¬ 
ceived almost vertically upon its sloping banks,— 
the whole of the bay-ice had disappeared, no ice 
whatever having been seen in it for the whole ex¬ 
tent of ten or twelve leagues, to which it was ex¬ 
amined, excepting an occasional fragment of an 
iceberg. But, on the other hand, a very large 
quantity of bay-ice, apparently of interminable 
extent, still remained on the southern side of the 
Sound, above Cape Hooker ; and particularly in 
the south-western ramification, because there it 
was defended, during the height of the day, by 
the penumbra of the adjoining mountains, whose 
great elevation, and transverse position, skreened 
the ice near their bases, from the solar rays. 
When we first entered the Sound, there were 
