NOTES ON ICE PHYSICS 
By Cuartes S. Wricut, B.A. 
THESE notes deal with a very few only of the subdivisions falling 
under the heading ‘Ice Physics’ and are intended merely to give 
a popular survey of this interesting and by no means unimportant 
branch of scientific work. 
As a practically new field of research, in the nature of things 
the work was largely observational in character, and until all 
the data are fully worked out all conclusions must be considered 
provisional and incomplete. 
A consideration of the important place in the scheme of things 
occupied by the molecule known as H,O would certainly lead one 
to give it the nickname of ‘ the mighty molecule.’ 
The climates of the earth are almost entirely controlled by 
water in one of its three forms. In the Northern Hemisphere 
we have long realised the effect of the Gulf Stream on our own 
Jands; what then is the effect on the Southern Hemisphere of a 
stream of huge icebergs ever breaking off from the Antarctic 
Continent and drifting northwards into low latitudes? Be it 
remembered that an iceberg at melting point is several times as 
efficient a reservoir of cold as an equal volume of water at the 
same temperature. 
Consider only the simple case of an ocean current washing 
a natural ice barrier stretched across a strait and gradually eat- 
ing its way through. How far reaching will be the effect when 
the barrier is down! The whole history of the world might 
easily be changed by some such simple catastrophe. 
SEA IcE 
Possibly foremost among the different forms of ice to be 
studied was that of sea ice—being fast ice * formed in autumn 
on the surface of the sea by the action of the cold air above it. 
* Tce not in movement. 
