Floe

“ There are fewer heavy old floes; on the other hand, the one-year floes, tremendously screwed and doubtless including old floes in their mass, have now enormously increased in area.
A floe which we have just passed must have been a mile across; this argues lack of swell and from that one might judge the open water to be very far. We made progress in a fairly good direction this morning, but the outlook is bad again—the ice seems to be closing. Again patience, we must go on steadily working through. ”

“ The two floes, each weighing millions of tons, are very wide; they are slowly moving towards each other; they nearly meet; and we mistakenly try to get between them before they close, and run our stem and half our keel on to A, the submerged ice-foot of the floe B. The floe C is coming towards us in the direction of B—well, to cut it short, if the floes C and B meet, with the Fonix between them, our party, thirty all told, have our little house squeezed, and when the floe opens our home goes down and we get on to the floe till we are rescued by some relief expedition, or we flicker out. ”

“ Frankly, we needed all the comfort that the hot food could give us. The icy fingers of the gale searched every cranny of our beach and pushed relentlessly through our worn garments and tattered tents. The snow, drifting from the glacier and falling from the skies, swathed us and our gear and set traps for our stumbling feet. The rising sea beat against the rocks and shingle and tossed fragments of floe-ice within a few feet of our boats. ”

“ At low tide the green-gray and blackened bulk of the larger boulders was exposed, cluttered with shell and weed-growth, and making the scene even more somber than when the tide had thrust itself up and around the sand, nosing between rocks and overspreading like a sentient invader. ”

“ As soon as it arrives on the coast, small roving flocks are seen, at various times of the day, coursing rapidly along the borders of our tide-water streams, flying swiftly and rather low, in circular sweeps along the meanders of the rock or river, and occasionally crossing from side to side, in rather a sportive and cheerful mien, than as the needy foragers they appear at the close of the autumn. ”

“ The foul tide rises and falls between low shores where, when it ebbs, are seen oozy shoals of slime, and every keel or paddle that stirs the surface of the river brings up the loathsomeness of the bottom. ”

“ Here is the best place of all for sharp eyes to find the animals and plants we seek. Where the hard rock has been worn down into hollows, the falling tide leaves a pool of still, clear water. These rock-pools are the home of many a creature. So let us look for them, until the rising tide sweeps over the rocks once more, and drives us away. ”

“ Then down the coast, tacking close to shore, slowly swam a little sloop, white-winged like some snowy sea fowl. Its course lay within twenty points of the wind’s eye; so it veered in and out again in long, slow strokes like the movements of a graceful skater. ”

“ The wind sends one tremendous wave after another to help them, and as a great roller breaks and recedes, all the little crested waves scrabble with might and main, pulling at the softened sand, until, after hours of this labor, the cut is made completely through from sea to pond. ”

“ If you examine the rocks which are left dry when the tide goes out, you will often find that they are covered almost all over with small shells which look rather like those of tiny limpets. Only at the top of each shell there is a little hole, from the margin of which a number of ridges run down to the bottom. And these ridges are so sharp, that if you happen to slip when you are wandering about among the pools, and catch at a rock to save yourself, they will cut your fingers almost as if they were knives. ”

“ The waves will come rolling in, streaming out in the wind like a courser’s mane, with snowy crest, and breaking with thundering roar they will sink back seething with foam. As the tide rises a few drops will fall pattering upon your feet ”

“ I have seen flocks streaming south in the fall so large that they were flowing over from horizon to horizon in an almost continuous stream all day long, at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, like a mighty river in the sky, widening, contracting, descending like falls and cataracts, and rising suddenly here and there in huge ragged masses like high-plashing spray. ”

“ If you step carefully to the edge of a pond or river, where this crow-foot covers the shore-water with its floating foliage and thousands of snow-flakes, you will not be in a hurry to disturb it, it is so truly beautiful. ”

“ It comes as no other breeze comes, and feels as no other breeze feels. At first two or three whiffles make darkened tracks on the glassy waters. Then half the sea afar off is covered with ripples. The ripples come creeping on, and the wind has reached the shore. ”

“ In the centre of the fall, where the water is the heaviest, it takes the leap in an unbroken mass of the deepest green, and in many places reaches the bottom in crystal columns of the same hue, till they meet the snow-white foam that heaves and rolls convulsedly in the enormous basin. ”

“ Some flocks rise in circling flight high up into the air, and descending again in the same dense numbers as they rose, settle in more remote places; others break away hurriedly, and fly in a wide sweep far around, but return again hastily to the rocks they had quitted, reconciled to bear with the disturbance. ”

“ Fish of the flood, on the bankèd billow
Thou layest thy head in dreams;
Sliding as slides thy shifting pillow,
One with the streams
Of the sea is thy spirit.
Gean-tree, thou spreadest thy foaming flourish
Abroad in the sky so grey ”

“ They are nothing more than the tiny bubbles, swirls, ripples, and breaks on the surface of the great volume of water that flows so inevitably onward. The bit of foam, the tiny wave caused by twig or branch or blade of water-grass, or the great rocks and cliffs that make the roaring whirlpools and rapids,—do they stay the waters, or turn the river back on its course, or in any way prevent its onward flow? ”

“ One day, often even one tide, is enough for this purpose. As the water is not deep, the mollusks are taken up with large forks. The workmen stand in the stream, wearing very high rubber boots. When late in the fall, this is intensely cold work. ”

“ Ever and anon a wave would break on the shore, and, as if mocking its victims, come rustling up the sand, covering the half buried feet, floating the clinging clothes, on and up, till it lifted and waved like moss the dank gray hair, then sink, sighing, back to the sea ”

“ And even when the rising tide drives the spring-tails into crevices where they remain submerged, perhaps for hours together, their bodies still remain dry, the water being kept off by numerous short bristles and prominences with which they are furnished. ”

“ A plunge, as of one leaping from a high elevation into the pond—a quick, bold swimmer from the shore—a dark-skinned face, with long black hair that floats behind it on the water—a breast gleaming with bright spangles—a body clad in bead-embroidered garments—a man? ”

“ Flounders are often brought many miles overland to market without any manifest annoyance or injury to them, and I have known them to remain in dry natural ponds in the rocks until the returning tide once more brought them a supply of salt water. ”

“ So frail, yet potent to withstand
The mountain-waves' wild buffeting.
Through storms no ship could dare to brave
The little shells float lightly, save
All that they might have lost of fine
Shape and soft colour crystalline. ”

“ In some places the mud is swept nearly clean away, and then you go splashing along, while always in a curious, echoing, musical way, comes the sound of running water, dripping water, plashing water, seeming always to be playing one melancholy strange tune, sad and sweet, and peculiar. ”

“ It is, indeed, very beautiful to see, during a swell, the water lashing the rocks and dashing over in clouds of white spray, or sometimes through the perforations or over and down the rocks in streams of white foam. ”

“ From the moment this flood commences one may draw back into his narrow shell, like an affrighted snail, and take a morning's nap:—the deck, for an hour to come, is no place for animals that are not web-footed. ”

“ He can throw up stream—the line falls soft as silk on the slow eddy below the rock, and the fly is drawn gently towards him across the current. When a natural fly approaches the surface of running water, and flutters along just above it, it encounters a light air, which flows in the same direction as the stream. ”

“ When waves roll in on the land, they break one after another upon the shore, as your ripples break upon the side of the basin. And they continue to roll in after the wind has fallen, in the same way that the ripples in the basin will go on curling for a little after you have ceased to blow. ”

“ The ceaseless churning of water at the foot of the Falls cuts back into the rock, undermining its upper layers, so that ever and anon they break off from the brink of the cataract, with the effect that the stream steadily retires. ”

“ Those happy days when there is a good rise of fly, when the fish are in their stations, heads up, and lying near the top of the water, and the wind is not too contrary, should indeed be gratefully remembered. A short length of water will suffice for the dry fly man—a few hundred yards. ”

“ Or a brook, which is a tiny trout stream, babbles on through the meadows and pastures, and has its attractions too. A stream is always the chief artery of the land, as in it are found the life-giving elements. All the birds, all the plants, flock to its banks, and its wooded sides are hushed by the subdued hum of insects. There are tall green brackens—brackens unfurling their fronds to the light, and full of the atoms of beautiful summer. ”

“ Well out of the reach of the tide the female scoops out a hole in the sand, deposits about one hundred or more of its round, rather parchment-shelled eggs, covers the nest carefully, obliterating all traces of the dug-out sand, and makes again for the sea by another route. ”

“ Small slimy spots began to appear, which glittered steadily amidst the changeful shine of the water. These grew to broad patches of mud, which widened and spread, with rocks here and there, and floundering fishes and crawling eels swarming. ”

“ The fourth and open side is to the sea, which for a good way out is hemmed in by rocks, between which a rope, slack but strong, is stretched across the creek, hanging, in very low tide, considerably above water, but in high tide having the middle part submerged. ”

“ A stream flowing into the sea, and charged with the débris of the land, deposits the coarser material near its mouth, while the finer particles are carried farther. In dry regions wind plays a similar part. ”

“ River shells such as the mussel, land shells such as those of snails, the bones of fishes and of such land animals as suffer drowning at times of flood or are mired in swampy places, logs of wood, and the stems and leaves of plants are examples of the variety of the remains of land and fresh-water organisms which are entombed in river deposits and sealed away as a record of the life of the time, and as proof that the deposits were laid by streams and not beneath the sea. ”

“ When the incoming tide drives the knots from the flats they seek the marshes or some shoal which is sufficiently elevated to remain uncovered during high water; they also frequent the crest of the beaches. ”

“ Every day we passed great flocks of sea fowl floating on the water, coming frequently almost within an oar's length, but always just out of reach. We were in worse condition than the Ancient Mariner, with food as well as water everywhere about us, and not a morsel or a drop to eat or drink. ”

“ Then the fish put its head out of the water and said, “As thou hast helped me out of the mud I will give thee a flute; when thou art in any need, play on it, and then I will help thee, and if ever thou lettest anything fall in the water, just play and I will reach it out to thee.” ”

“ Great masses of the Flustra, as it is called, line the bottom and sides of my pool. They grow in tufts, standing upright on the rock, and looking exactly like hard grey seaweeds, while there is nothing to lead you to suspect that they are anything else. Yesterday I chipped off very carefully a piece of rock with a tuft upon it, and have kept it since in a glass globe by itself with sea-water, for the little creatures living in this marine city require a very good supply of healthy water and air. ”

“ A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. ”

“ As his boat rode smoothly over the crest of the wave and through the rainbow, he held out the little shell in the beam of coloured light. There was a wonderful change in the shell after it had passed through the rainbow ”

“ Divers can remain some time; but the birds that remain the longest under water are the semi-aquatic, whose feet are only half-webbed. I have watched the common English water-hen for many minutes walking along at the bottom of a stream, apparently as much in its element as if on shore, pecking and feeding as it walked. ”

“ Long lines of pale-gray clouds, with edges so soft that they almost coalesce, come pressing each other on to the bare heights, and, almost before one mass has transformed itself into silvery streaks on the fellsides, there are others pouring down on their emaciated remains. ”