sheets of ice, whose boundaries are not
beyond our vision from the masthead--these are "floes;" between them we
find easy way, it is fair "sailing ice." In the clear sky to the north a
streak of lucid white light is the reflection from an icy surface; that
is, "ice-blink," in the language of these seas. The glare from snow is
yellow, while open water gives a dark reflection.

Northward still; but now we are in fog the ice is troublesome; a gale is
rising. Now, if our ship had timbers they would crack, and if she had a
bell it would be tolling; if we were shouting to each other we should not
hear, the sea is in a fury. With wild force its breakers dash against a
heaped-up wall of broken ice, that grinds and strains and battles
fiercely with the water. This is "the pack," the edge of a great
ice-field broken by the swell. It is a perilous and an exciting thing to
push through pack ice in a gale.

Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is "an ice-field." Masses
are forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our sailors call
them "hummocks;" here and there the broken ice displays large "holes of
water." Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827, Parry adventured with
his men to reach the North Pole, if that should be possible. With
sledges and portable boats they laboured on through snow and over
hummocks, launching their boats over the larger holes of water. With
stout hearts, undaunted by toil or danger, they went boldly on, though by
degrees it became clear to the leaders of the expedition that they were
almost like mice upon a treadmill cage, making a great expenditure of leg
for little gain. The ice was floating to the south with them, as they
were walking to the north; still they went on. Sleeping by day to avoid
the glare, and to get greater warmth during the time of rest, and
travelling by night--watch-makers' days and nights, for it was all one
polar day--the men soon were unable to distinguish noon from midnight.
The great event of one day on this dreary waste was the discovery of two
flies upon an ice hummock; these, says Parry, became at once a topic of
ridiculous importance. Presently, after twenty-three miles' walking,
they had only gone one mile forward, the ice having industriously floated
twenty-two miles in the opposite direction; and then, after walking
forward eleven miles, they found themselves to be three miles behind the
place from which they started. The party accordingly r