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FORMATION OF ICE FLOES.

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at the rate of some seven knots in the hour, and the · ice packing, is driven against ice adhering to the land. Acting against such fixed masses the driven ice is overlapped with that it is forced against, and little icebergs are quickly formed by the accumulatation of heaped-up floes.

In this way the ice is formed into vast bergs, rugged and torn, dashed up into heaps, one thickness overlaying another, and giving the ice the appearance of laminated floors. The ice to the westward of Spitzbergen is no doubt rough in places, but the roughness is easily accounted for. In general the surface is perfectly level, and it almost satisfied us that it is formed upon the surface of the sea, which, getting broken up in the spring, sometimes receives the portions of some toppling iceberg rudely broken off, and the fragments strewn about make what hummocks and other rough projections are seen upon its surface. In rough weather it is possible that two wedge-shaped masses may be driven together with sufficient force to lift some luckless ship that may be in the way some distance into the air; but the chances are greatly in her favour that the cause being removed the ice will slip back into its former position and restore the uninjured craft once more to her place upon the sea; in fact, the experienced men who sail in these seas, with whom

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we have conversed, mention several such instances, but the Smith Sound ice combinations are rarely if ever seen by them in these seas we have been traversing.

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we have conversed, mention several such instances, but the Smith Sound ice combinations are rarely if ever seen by them in these seas we have been traversing.

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