freezes to a transport ice. They are as permanent as the rocks on which they rest: For although large portions may be frequently separated, yet the annual growth replaces the loss, and probably, on the whole, produces a perpetual increase. I have seen those styled the Seven Icebergs, situated in the valleys of the north-west coast of Spitzbergen; their perpendicular front may be about 300 feet in height; the green colour, and glistening surface of which, form a pleasing variety in prospect, with the magnificence of the encompassing snow-clad mountains, which, as they recede from the eye, seem to "rise crag above crag, "in endless perspective.

Large pieces may be separated from those ice-bergs in the summer season, when they are particularly fragile, by their ponderous overhanging masses overcoming the force of cohesion; or otherwise, by the powerful expansion of the water, filling any excavation or deep-seated cavity, when its dimensions are enlarged by freezing, thereby exerting a tremendous force, and bursting the whole asunder.

Pieces thus or otherwise detached, are hurled into the sea with a dreadful crash; if they are received into deep water, they are liable to be drifted off the land, and, under the form of ice-islands, or ice-mountains, they likewise

Magnitude of Icebergs.

If all the floating islands of ice thus proceed from disruptions of the icebergs generated on the land, how is it that so few are met with in Greenland, and those comparatively so diminutive, whilst Baffin's Bay affords them so plentifully, and of such amazing size? The largest I ever saw in Greenland, was about a thousand yards in circumference, nearly square, of a regular flat surface, twenty feet above the level of the sea; and as it was composed of the most dense kind of ice, it must have been 150 or 160 feet in thickness, and in weight about two millions of tons. But masses have been repeatedly seen in Davis' Straits, near two miles in length, and one-third as broad, whose rugged mountainous summits were reared with various spires to the height of more than a hundred feet, whilst their base must have reached to the depth of a hundred and fifty yards beneath the surface of the sea. Others, again, have been observed, possessing an even surface, of five or six square miles in area, elevated thirty yards above the sea, and fairly run aground in water of ninety ̧or a hundred fathoms in depth; the weight of which must have been upwards of two thousand millions of tons!

of the Land.

Spitzbergen is possessed of every character which is supposed to be necessary for the formation of the largest icebergs; high mountains, deep extensive valleys, intense

frost,

frost, and occasional thaws; yet here a berg is very rarely met with, and the largest I ever heard of, was not to be compared with the productions of Baffin's Bay. Icebergs, I therefore conclude, may have their principal origin in the deep sheltered narrow bays, with which Old or West Greenland abounds. In this respect it possesses a decided advantage over Spitzbergen, since, on the west side, the coast now alone visited, few sheltered spots occur; at least those situations the most protected from the influences of the wind and prevailing currents, are found annually to disembogue themselves of their ice. On the eastern coast, if we may rely on the charts, and credit the affirmations of the Dutch, many more suitable spots are offered, wherein ice may be increased for ages; the most prevailing winds, and the common set of the current on these shores, having no tendency to dislodge it, until its enormous growth has carried it beyond the limits of security and undisturbed rest. And from this Eastern coast it is, (which is favourable to the supposition,) that most of the icebergs which have been seen, seem to have drifted, they being mostly met with in the vicinity of Cherry Island, or between it and the southern Cape of Spitzbergen, where the course of the current is supposed to be from the northeast towards the south-west. The ice of bergs invariably producing pure fresh-water, when dissolved, is no argument against the majority having their origin amidst sea-water; for fields, which, from their flat surface, and large ex

tent, must have their rise on the bosom of the ocean, commonly afford a solution equally fresh.

Icebergs generated at a distance

from any known Land.

Müller relates a circumstance which intimates, that some icebergs have their origin in the wide expanse of the ocean. He informs us, that in the year 1714, one Markoff, a Cossack, with some other persons, were sent to explore the ocean north of Russia, by order of the Russian government; but being foiled in his object, by the immense aggregation of drift-ice, he conceived the design of trying during the winter season to travel over the then more compact ice. Accordingly, he prepared several of the country sledges, drawn by dogs; and, accompanied by eight persons, he set out on the 15th March (O. S.) from the mouth of the Yani, on the coast of Siberia, in latitude 71° N. and longitude about 132° E. He proceeded for seven days northward, until he reached the 77th or 78th degree of north latitude, when his progress was impeded by ice elevated into prodigious mountains. From the top of these, he could see nothing but mountainous ice to the northward; at the same time falling short of provisions for his dogs, he returned with difficulty: several of his dogs died for want, and were given to the rest for their support. On the 3d of April he reached the Siberian shore, after an absence of nineteen days, during which he travelled 800 miles.

Here, therefore, is a fact of a continent, if we may so speak, of mountainous

ing less resistance from the water, in proportion as its depth beneath the surface is diminished. From the iceberg's firmness, it often affords a stable mooring to a ship in strong adverse winds, or when a state of rest is required for the performance of the different operations attendant on a successful fishery. The fisher likewise avails himself of this quiescent property, when his ship is incommoded or rendered unmanageable by the accumulation of drift-ice around, when his object is to gain a windward situation more open. He gets under the lea of the iceberg, -the loose ice soon forces past the berg, the ship remains nearly stationary, and the wished-for effect seldom fails to result. Mooring to lofty icebergs is attended with considerable danger: being sometimes finely balanced, they are apt to be overturned; and whilst floating in a tide-way, should their base be arrested by the ground, their detrusion necessarily follows, attended with a thundering noise, and the crushing of every object they encounter in their descent: thus have vessels been often staved, and sometimes wrecked, by the fall of their icy mooring. Men and boats are a weaker prey, the vast alone occasioned by such events, at once overwhelming every smaller object, within a considerable distance of the rolling mountain.

Fragility of Icebergs.

waves

All pure ice becomes exceedingly fragile towards the close of the whale-fishing season, when the temperate air thaws its surface. Bergs, on being struck by an axe,

for the purpose of placing a mooring anchor, have been known to rend asunder and precipitate the careless seamen into the yawning chasm, whilst occasionally the masses are hurled apart, and fall in contrary directions with a prodigious crush, burying boats and men in one common ruin. The awful effect produced by a solid mass many thousands of tons in weight, changing its situation with the velocity of a falling body, whereby its aspiring summit is in a moment buried in the ocean, can be more easily imagined than described!

If the blow with any edge-tool on brittle ice does not sever the mass, still it is often succeeded by a crackling noise, proving the mass to be ready to burst from the action of an internal expansion; in this way, sometimes deep chasms are formed, similar to those occurring in the Glaciers of the Alps.

It is common, when ships moor to icebergs, to lie as remote from the danger as their ropes will allow, and yet accidents sometimes happen, though the ship ride at a distance of a hundred yards from the ice. Thus, calves rising up with a velocity nearly equal to that of the descent of a falling berg, have produced destructive effects. In the year 1812, whilst the Thomas of Hull, Captain Taylor, lay moored to an iceberg in Davis' Straits, a calf was detached from beneath, and rose with such tremendous force, that the keel of the ship was lifted even with the water at the bow, whilst the stern was nearly immersed beneath the surface. Fortunately the ship was not materially damaged.

From

From the deep pools of water formed in the summer season on the depressed surface of some bergs, the ships navigating where they abound are presented with opportunities for watering with the greatest ease and dispatch. For this purpose, casks are landed upon the lower bergs, whilst, from the higher, the water is con. veyed by means of a hose into casks placed in the boats, at the side of the ice, or even upon the deck of the ship.

Navigating amongst icebergs in the gloom of night, has sometimes been attended with fatal consequences. Occurring far from land, and in unexpected situations, the danger would be extreme, were they not providentially rendered visible by their natural effulgence, which enables the mariner to distinguish them at some distance, even in the darkest night, or during the prevalence of the densest fog.

Abstract of the remarks on the for

mation of the Polar Ice.

From what has been advanced in the preceding pages, on the mode and place of formation of the ice, occurring in the seas intermediate between East Greenland or Spitzbergen, and West or Old Greenland, the following conclusions seem naturally to result, and which will partly apply to the formation of the ice in other places of the polar circle :

I. Drift ice. That the light packed or drift ice is the annual product of the bays of Spitzbergen, and of the interstices in the body of older ice; and, that it is wholly derived from the water of the

ocean.

That the heavy packed or drift ice generally arises from the disruption of fields.

II. Icebergs. That some ice mountains or icebergs are derived from the icebergs generated on the land between the mountains of the sea coast, and are consequently the product of snow or rain water.

That a more considerable portion may probably be formed in the deep sheltered bays abounding on the east coast of Spitzbergen. These have their bed in the waters of the ocean, and are partly the product of sea-water, and partly that of snow and rain water. And it is highly probable,

That a continent of ice mountains may exist in regions near the Pole, yet unexplored, the nucleus of which may be as ancient as the earth itself, and its increase derived from the sea and atmosphere combined.

III. Fields.-That some fields arise from the cementation, by the agency of frost, of the pieces of a closely aggregated pack, which may have consisted of light or heavy ice; and, consequently, which may have been wholly derived from the ocean, or from the sea and atmosphere combined.

That the most considerable masses are generated in openings of the far northern ice, produced by the constant recession towards the south of that body lying near the coasts of Spitzbergen; and, that such fields are at first derived from the ocean, but are indebted for a considerable portion of superstructure to the annual addition of the whole, or part of their burthen of snow. And,

IV. As to the ice in general.—
That