262 ACCOUNT OF THE AllCTlC IIEGIONS. 



the possibility of ice-bergs being produced in the 

 sea, would seem to have a sufficient solution. 



Should this conclusion be admitted, that ice- 

 bergs may in some oases have their origin at a dis- 

 tance from land, then it would appear that ^ e oc- 

 currence of ice-bergs in the antarctic zone, is by no 

 means decisive of the existence of land around the 

 Southern Pole. 



SECT. V. 



On the Situation or General Outline of the 

 Polar Ice. 



That extensive body of ice, which, with occasion- 

 al tracts of land, occupies the northern extremity of 

 the earth, and prevents all access to the regions im- 

 mediately surrounding the Pole, fills, it appears, on 

 an average, a circle of above 2000 geographical miles 

 diameter ; and presents an outline which, though 

 subject to partial variations, is found, at the same 

 season of each succeeding year, to be generally simi- 

 lar, and often strikingly uniform. 



The most remarkable alteration in the configura- 

 tion of the polar ice on record, is that said to have 

 taken place between Iceland and Greenland, in the 

 beginning of the fifteenth century, whereby the in- 

 tercourse between the Icelanders and the colonics 



