286 ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



the pressure, the ice sometimes rises to the height 

 of the gunwale, squeezing and shaking her in a 

 terrible manner. Drift ice does not often coalesce 

 with such a degree of force, as to endanger any ship 

 which may happen to be beset in it ; when, how- 

 ever, land opposes its motion, or the ship is immu- 

 red in the centre of a heavy body of it, the pressure 

 is sometimes alarming. 



3. Fields often open, close, and revolve in the 

 most extraordinary way, in calms as well as in storms. 

 Sometimes these motions may be accounted for ; at 

 other times they are altogether anomalous. Fields, 

 floes, and compact bodies of drift-ice, are disturbed by 

 the wind, by currents and tides, or by the pressure 

 of other ice against them. The wind forces all ice 

 to leeward, with a velocity nearly in the inverse 

 proportion to its depth under water ; light ice, con- 

 sequently, drives faster than heavy ice, loose ice 

 faster than fields, and fields faster than bergs. 

 Fields may approximate each other from three 

 causes, dependent on the influence of the wind. 

 First, If the lighter field be to windward, it will ne- 

 cessarily be impelled towards the heavier, by the in- 

 fluence of the wind. Secondly, As the wind fre- 

 qviently commences blowing on the windward-side 

 of the ice, and continues several hours before it is 

 felt a few miles distant to leeward, the windward 

 field begins to drift, before any impression is produ- 

 ced on the ice to leeward of it ; and, thirdly. Fields 



