Beset the situation of a ship when closely surrounded by ice.
A bight is a bay in the outline of the ice.
Blink. A peculiar brightness of the atmosphere, often assuming an archlike form, which is generally perceptible over ice or land covered with snow. The blink of land, as well as that over large quantities of ice, is usually of a yellowish cast.
Bore. The operation of “boring” through loose ice consists in entering it under a press of sail, and forcing the ship through by separating the masses.
Brash-ice is still smaller than drift-ice, and may be considered as the wreck of other kinds of ice.
Cache. Literally a hiding-place. The places of deposit of provisions in Arctic travel are so called.
A calf is a portion of ice which has been depressed by the same means as a hummock is elevated. It is kept down by some larger mass, from beneath which it shows itself on one side.
Drift-ice consists of pieces less than floes, of various shapes and magnitudes.
Field-ice, or a field of ice, “is a sheet of ice so extensive that its limits cannot be discerned from the masthead of the ship.”
Fiord. An abrupt opening in the coastline, admitting the sea.