The water, cooled less rapidly, is warmer now than the surrounding air, and yields this vapour in consequence.

By the time our vessel has reached Baffin's Bay, still coasting along Greenland, in addition to old floes and bergs, the water is beset with "pancake ice." That is the young ice when it first begins to cake upon the surface.

Innocent enough it seems, but it is sadly clogging to the ships.

It sticks about their sides like treacle on a fly's wing; collecting unequally, it destroys all equilibrium, and impedes the efforts of the steersman.

Rocks split on the Greenland coast with loud explosions, and more icebergs fall.