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We still sail northward, among 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.
To the southward there was a thick mist, caused by the snow falling in that direction, and in this she was probably shrouded. On looking to the north, we perceived in the horizon a bright luminous appearance, something like the ice-blink, but brighter, and which seemed to increase in height.
In his account of the view from the summit he speaks of "the ice-blink caused by the extensive glacial sheets north of the Saint Elias group," which would surely be out of the range of any possible vision, but does not mention at all the master sight that bursts upon the eye when the summit is actually gained the great mass of "Denali's Wife," or Mount Foraker, filling all the middle distance.
Within the margin of the pack, it appeared to consist of heavy and extensive floes, having a bright ice-blink over them; but no clear water could be discovered to the westward. The birds, which had hitherto been seen since our first approach to the ice, were fulmar peterels, little auks, looms, and a few gulls.
"This appearance of the ice-blink," says he, "occurred on the 13th of June 1820, in latitude 76 degrees north. The sky aloft was covered with dense, uniform, hazy cloud, which indeed occupied the whole of the heavens, excepting a portion near the horizon, where it seemed to be repelled.
It certainly looked like the former; it was completely free of floating ice, large or small, except the cakes which were broken away by the waves from the edge of the enormous floe just left behind, and they were kept by the wind close to their parent mass; the sea ran so high and was so regular as to convey the idea of a very considerable extent of "fetch;" and, lastly, there was neither ice nor ice-blink to be seen anywhere along the whole stretch of the northern horizon.
There has been heavy rain and seas, and we have dropped the Erik completely. The Roosevelt is going fine. We can see the Greenland coast plainly and to-day, the 29th, we raised and passed Disco Island. Icebergs on all sides. The light at midnight is almost as bright as early evening twilight in New York on the Fourth of July and the ice-blink of the interior ice-cap is quite plain.
On August 16 pack was observed on the horizon, and next day the bay was filled with loose ice, which soon consolidated. Soon afterwards huge old floes and many bergs drifted in. "The pack appears as dense as we have ever seen it. No open water is visible, and 'ice-blink' girdles the horizon.
Scoresby was, perhaps, one of the most persevering and intelligent observers of nature that ever went to the polar seas. His various accounts of what he saw are most interesting. We cannot do better than quote his remarks upon ice-blink, that curious appearance of white light on the horizon, whereby voyagers are led to infer the presence of ice:
Mivins, hand me the glass; it seems to me there's a water-sky to the northward." "What is a water-sky, Captain?" enquired Fred. "It is a peculiar, dark appearance of the sky on the horizon, which indicates open water just the reverse of that bright appearance which you have often seen in the distance, and which we call the ice-blink."
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