POLAll-ICEi — FOIIMATION AT SEA. 239 



I have often noticed the process of freezing from 

 tlie first appearance of crystals, until the ice had ob- 

 tained a thickness of more than a foot ; and did not 

 iind 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 is 

 sometimes the cause of the vacancy or space free 

 from ice, where this new ice is generated ; the ice of 

 older formation being driven off by easterly winds, 

 assisted perhaps by a current ; yet this new ice fre- 

 quently occurs at the distance of forty or fifty 

 leagues from Spitzbergen. But I have also many 

 times seen ice grow to a consistence capable of stop- 

 ping the progress of a ship with a brisk wind, even 

 when exposed to the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, 

 on the southern 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 disadvanta- 

 ges. I shall attempt to describe its progress from 

 the commencement. 



The first appearance of ice when in the state of 

 detached crystals, is called by the sailors sludge, 

 and resembles snow when cast into water that is too 

 cold to dissolve it. This smooths the ruffled sur- 

 face of the sea, and produces an effect like oil in pre- 

 venting breakers. These crystals soon unite, and 

 would form a continuous sheet ; but, by the motion 



