quantities that are dissolved and dissipated by the power of the waves, and the warmth of the climate into which it drifts. It has frequently been urged, that the vicinity of land is indispensable for its formation. Whether this may be the case or not, the following facts may possibly determine.

I have noticed the process of freezing from the first appearance of crystals, until the ice had obtained a thickness of more than a foot, and did not find that the land afforded any assistance or even shelter, which could not have been dispensed with during the operation. It is true, that the land was the cause of the vacancy or space free from ice, where this new ice was generated; the ice of older formation had been driven off by easterly winds, assisted perhaps by a current; yet this new ice lay at the distance of twenty leagues from Spitzbergen. But I have also seen ice grow to a consistence capable of stopping the progress of a ship with a brisk wind, even when exposed to the waves of the North Sea and Western Ocean, on the south aspect of the main body of the Greenland ice, in about the seventy-second degree of north latitude. In this situation, the process of freezing is accomplished under peculiar disadvantages. I shall attempt to describe its progress from the

commencement.

sludge, and resembles snow when cast into water that is too cold to dissolve it. This smooths the ruffled sea, and produces an effect like oil in stilling the breaking surface. These crystals soon unite, and would form a continuous sheet, but, by the motion of the waves, they are broken into very small pieces, scarcely three inches in diameter. As they strengthen, many of them coalesce, and form a larger mass. of the sea still continuing, these enlarged pieces strike each other on every side, whereby they become rounded, and their edges turned up, whence they obtain the name of pancakes: several of these again unite, and thereby continue to increase, forming larger pancakes, until they become perhaps a foot in thickness, and many yards in circumference.

The undulations

When the sea is perfectly smooth, the freezing process goes on more regularly, and perhaps more rapidly. The commencement is similar to that just described; it is afterwards continued by constant additions to its under surface. During twenty-four hours keen frost, it will have become two or three inches thick, and in less than forty-eight hours time, capable of sustaining the weight of a man. This is termed bay-ice, whilst that of older formation is

Sea.

The first appearance of ice whilst in the state of detached crystals, is called by the sailors

ice; the former being from a foot to about a yard in thickness, and the latter from about a yard upwards.

It is generally allowed, that all

that

that is necessary in low temperatures for the formation of ice, is still water: here then, it is obtained. In every opening of the ice at a distance from the sea, the water is always as smooth as that of a harbour; and as I have observed the growth of ice up to a foot in thickness in such a situation, during one month's frost, the effect of many years we might deem to be sufficient for the formation of the most ponderous fields.

There is no doubt, but a large quantity of ice is annually generated in the bays, and amidst the islands of Spitzbergen: which bays, towards the end of summer, are commonly emptied of their contents, from the thawing of the snow on the mountains causing a current outwards. But this will not account for the immense fields which are so abundant in Greenland. These evidently come from the northward, and have their origin between Spitzbergen and the Pole.

On the Generation of Fields. As strong winds are known to possess great influence in drifting off the ice, where it meets with the least resistance, may they not form openings in the ice far to the north, as well as in latitudes within our observation? Notwithstanding the degree in which this cause may prevail is uncertain, yet of this we are assured, that the ice on the west coast of Spitzbergen, has always a tendency to drift, and actually does advance in a surpris ing manner to the south or southwest; whence some vacancy must assuredly be left in the place which it formerly occupied.

These openings, therefore, may be readily frozen over, whatever be their extent, and the ice may in time acquire all the characters of a massy field.

It must, however, be confessed, that from the density and transparency of the ice of fields, and the purity of the water obtained therefrom, it is difficult to conceive that it could possess such characters if frozen entirely from the water of the ocean;-particularly as young ice is generally found to be porous and opaque, and does not afford a pure solution. The succeeding theory, therefore, is perhaps more consonant to appearances; and although it may not be established, has at least probability to recommend' it.

It appears from what has been advanced, that openings must occasionally occur in the ice between Spitzbergen and the Pole, and that these openings will in all probability, be again frozen over. Allowing, therefore, a thin field or a field of bay-ice to be therein formed, a superstructure may probably be added by the following process. The frost, which constantly prevails during nine months of the year, relaxes towards the end of June or the beginning of July, whereby the covering of snow, annually deposited to the depth of two or three feet on the ice, dissolves. Now, as this field is supposed to arise amidst the older and heavier ice, it may readily occupy the whole interval, and be cemented to the old ice on every side; whence the melted snow has no means of escape. Or, whatever be the means of its retention on the surface of the young field, whether

by

by the adjunction of higher ice, the elevation of its border by the pressure of the surrounding ice, or the irregularity of its own surface, several inches of ice must be added to its thickness on the returning winter, by the conversion of the snow-water into solid ice. This process repeated for many successive years, or even ages, together with the enlargement of its under-side from the ocean, might be deemed sufficient to produce the most stupendous bodies of ice that have yet been discovered; at the same time that the ice thus formed, would doubtless correspond with the purity and transparency of that of fields in general.

Fields may sometimes have their origin in heavy close packs, which, being cemented together by the intervention of new ice, may become one solid mass. In this way are produced such fields as exhibit a rugged, hummocky surface.

Fields commonly make their appearance about the month of June, though sometimes earlier : -they are frequently the resort of young whales; strong north and westerly winds expose them to the Greenlandmen, by driving off the loose ice. Some fields exhibit a perfect level plain, without a fissure or hummock, so clear indeed, that I imagine, upon one which I saw, a coach might be driven a hundred miles in a direct line, without any obstruction. Most commonly, however, the surface contains some hummocks, which somewhat relieve the uniformity of intense light, by a tinge of delicate green, in cavities where the light gains admittance

in an oblique direction, by passing through a portion of ice.

The invariable tendency of fields to drift to the south-westward, even in calms, is the means of many being yearly destroyed. They have frequently been observed to advance a hundred miles in this direction, within the space of one month, notwithstanding the occurrence of winds from every quarter. On emerging from amidst the smaller ice, which before sheltered them, they are soon broken up by the swell, are partly dissolved, and partly converted into drift ice. The places of such are supplied by others from the north. White bears here find an occasional habitation, and will travel inany leagues from land upon the fields. They have been repeatedly met with, not only upon these continuous sheets of ice, but on the ice of close packs, to the utmost extent to which ships have penetrated.

On the tremendous Concussions of

Fields.

The occasional rapid motion of fields, with the strange effects produced on any opposing substance, exhibited by such immense bodies, is one of the most striking objects this country presents, and is certainly the most terrific. They not unfrequently acquire a rotatory movement, whereby their circumference attains a velocity of several miles per hour. A field, thus in motion, coming in contact with another at rest, or more especially with a contrary direction of movement, produces a dreadful shock. A body of more than ten thousand millions of tons in weight, meeting with resistance, when in motion,

:

motion, the consequences may possibly be conceived! The weaker field is crushed with an awful noise; sometimes the destruction is mutual pieces of huge dimensions and weight, are not unfrequently piled upon the top, to the height of twenty or thirty feet, whilst doubtless a proportionate quantity is depressed beneath. The view of those stupendous effects in safety, exhibits a picture sublimely grand; but where there is danger of being overwhelmed, terror and dismay must be the predominant feelings. The whalefishers at all times require unremitting vigilance to secure their safety, but scarcely in any situation so much, as when navigating amidst those fields: in foggy weather, they are particularly dangerous, as their motions cannot then be distinctly observed. It may easily be imagined, that the strongest ship can no more withstand the shock of the contact of two fields, than a sheet of paper can stop a musket-ball. Numbers of vessels, since the establishment of the fishery, have been thus destroyed; some have been thrown upon the ice, some have had their hulls completely torn open, and others have been buried beneath the heaped fragments of the ice.

In the year 1804, I had a good opportunity of witnessing the effects produced by the lesser masses in motion. Passing between two fields of bay-ice, about a foot in thickness, they were observed rapidly to approach each other, and before our ship could pass the strait, they met with a velocity of three or four miles per hour: the one overlaid the other, and pre

sently covered many acres of surface. The ship proving an obstacle to the course of the ice, it squeezed up on both sides, shaking her in a dreadful manner, and producing a loud grinding, or lengthened acute tremulous noise, accordingly as the degree of pressure was diminished or increased, until it had risen as high as the deck. After about two hours, the velocity was diminished to a state of rest; and soon afterwards, the two sheets of ice receded from each other, nearly as rapidly as they before advanced. The ship, in this case, did not receive any injury, but had the ice been only half a foot thicker, she would probably have been wrecked.

In the month of May of the present year, (1813), I witnessed a more tremendous scene. Whilst navigating amidst the most ponderous ice which the Greenland seas present, in the prospect of making our escape from a state of besetment, our progress was unexpectedly arrested by an isthmus of ice, about a mile in breadth, formed by the coalition of the point of an immense field on the north, with that of an aggregation of floes on the south. To the north field, we moored the ship, in the hope of the ice separating in this place. I then quitted the ship, and travelled over the ice to the point of collison, to observe the state of the bar which now prevented our release. I immediately discovered that the two points had but recently met; that already a prodigious mass of rubbish had been squeezed upon the top, and that the motion had not abated. The fields continued to overlay each other with a majestic

motion, producing a noise resembling that of complicated machinery, or distant thunder. The pressure was so immense, that numerous fissures were occasioned, and the ice repeatedly rent beneath my feet. In one of the fissures, I found the snow on the level to be three and a half feet deep, and the ice upwards of twelve. In one place, hummocks had been thrown up to the height of twenty feet from the surface of the field, and at least twenty-five feet from the level of the water; they extended fifty or sixty yards in length, and fifteen in breadth, forming a mass of about two thousand tons in weight. The majestic unvaried movement of the ice, the singular noise with which it was accompanied,-the tremendous power exerted,-and the wonderful effects produced, were calculated to excite sensations of novelty and grandeur, in the mind of even the most careless spectator!

Sometimes these, motions of the ice may be accounted for. Fields are disturbed by currents,-the wind, or the pressure of other ice against them. Though the set of the current be generally towards the south-west, yet it seems occasionally to vary the wind forces all ice to leeward, with a velocity nearly in the inverse proportion to its depth under water; light ice consequently drives faster than heavy ice, and loose ice than fields: loose ice meeting the side of a field in its course, becomes deflected, and its reaction causes a circular motion of the field. Fields may approximate each other, from three causes: first, If the lighter ice be to windward, it will, of ne

cessity, be impelled towards the heavier: secondly, As the wind frequently commences blowing on the windward side of the ice, and continues several hours before it is felt a few miles distant to leeward, the field begins to drift, before the wind can produce any impression on ice on its opposite side; and, thirdly, which is not an uncommon case, by the two fields being impelled towards each other by winds acting on each from opposite quarters.

The closing of heavy ice, encircling a quantity of bay-ice, causes it to run together with such force, that it overlaps wherever two sheets meet, until it sometimes attains the thickness of many feet. Drift-ice does not often coalesce with such a pressure as to endanger any ship which may happen to be beset in it: when, however, land opposes its drift, or the ship is a great distance immured amongst it, the pressure is sometimes alarming.

Icebergs.

The term icebergs has commonly been applied to those immense bodies of ice situated on the land, "filling the valleys between the high mountains," and generally exhibiting a square perpendicular front towards the sea. They recede backward inland to an extent never explored. Martin, Crantz, Phipps, and others, have described those wonders of nature, and all agree as to their manner of formation, in the congelation of the sleet and rains of summer, and of the accumulated snow, partly dissolved by the summer sun, which, on its decline,

freezes