POLAR ICE.-^ORIGl'N OF ICE^BEUGS. 259 



edge at tlie general line formed by the coast. In 

 the summer season, when they are particularly fra- 

 gile, the force of cohesion is often overcome by the 

 weiglit of the prodigious masses tliat overhang the 

 sea ; and in winter, the same effect may be pro- 

 duced, by the powerful expansion of the water fill- 

 ing any excavation or deep-seated cavity, when its 

 dimensions are enlarged by freezing, thereby exert- 

 ing a tremendous force, and bursting the berg 

 asunder. 



Pieces thus or otherwise detached, are hurled in- 

 to the sea with a dreadful crash. When they fall 

 into sufficiently deep water, they are liable to be 

 drifted off the land, and down Davis' Strait, accord- 

 ing to the set of the current ; but if they fnW into 

 a shallow sea, there they must remain until suffi- 

 ciently wasted to float away. In their passage 

 down the Strait, they often ground on the reefs or 

 shallows which occiu' in different situations, where 

 they interrupt the passage of the drift-ice, and be- 

 come formidable barriers to the advance of the 

 whale-fishers into Baffin's Bay. On these reefs, 

 and in the bays in Davis' Strait, ice-bergs have 

 been known to take the ground^ and remain station- 

 ary for some years. Fabricius and Crantz men- 

 tion two immense ice-bergs having grounded in 

 South-East Bay, where they remained several years. 

 From their vast size, they were named by the Dutch, 

 Amsterdam and Haarlem. 



R 2 



