I'OLAE-ICE. — ORIGIN OF ICE-BERGS. 26l 



stance, from which there is reason to infer, that some 

 ice-bergs have their origin in the wide expanse of 

 the ocean. He informs us, in a brief account, al- 

 ready noticed, of the expedition of Alexei MarkofF, 

 across an extensive body of ice, in the year 1714; 

 that after this traveller had proceeded seven days 

 northward, from the mouth of the Jana, as fast as 

 his dogs could draw, his progress was impeded by 

 ice rising in the sea like mountains, from the top 

 of which no land could be seen, but only ice. 



Here, therefore, is a fact of a continent, if we may 

 so speak, of mountainous ice existing, and probably 

 constantly increasing in the ocean, at a distance of 

 between three and four hundred miles from any 

 known land : indeed, it must, in sucli a situation, 

 be so completely sheltered by the exterior drift or 

 field-ice in all directions, that every facility seems 

 to be afforded for its growth, that a sheltered bay 

 in the land could supply : For if we can conceive, 

 from the fore-mentioned process of the enlargement 

 of fields by the addition of the annually deposited 

 humidity, that a few years may be sufficient for the 

 production of considerable fields of ice, what might 

 be the effect of fifty or sixty centuries, affording an 

 annual increase? And if* to the precipitations 

 from the atmosphere, we add the store of ice sup- 

 plied by the sea during intense frosts, and conceive 

 also of a state of quiescence, for the full oj)eration 

 of these causes, secured for ages, — the question of 



