NON-CRYSTALLINE ICE COLUMNS—MACGREGOR. 377 
Art. VI.—On A NoTEWoRTHY CASE OF THE OCCURRENCE OF ICE 
IN THE Form oF NoN-CRYSTALLINE COLUMNS. By 
Pror. J. G. MacGrecor, Dalhousie College, Halzfaz, 
N.S 
(Read 10th February, 1890.) 
On the morning after the first sharp frost of the present win- 
ter, the ground in front of the Dalhousie College Building, to the 
extent of about 60 square yards, was found to be covered with 
little columns of ice springing from apertures in the frozen earth. 
They were irregularly distributed, occurring in groups separated 
by interspaces which were in most cases narrow, and were either 
without columns altogether or had only a few isolated ones. The 
ice columns themselves varied in length from half an inch to two 
inches. They were for the most part roughly circular in section 
with diameters ranging from one-tenth to one-third of an inch in 
difterent columns, but practically uniform throughout the whole 
length of any one column. The section of any one column was 
in general the same at all points of its length, and they had thus 
the appearance of being striated longitudinally. Many of them 
carried little pebbles on their summits, and still more carried 
fragments of frozen earth. The ice of which they were composed 
was not transparent, but had a white appearance similar to that 
of compressed snow, or of ice traversed by innumerable tiny 
fissures. They sprang from the frozen earth at no uniform in- 
clination to the vertical, but in the great majority of cases they 
curved upwards, so that their upper parts were less inclined to 
the vertical than their lower parts. 
The occurrence of ice in this form after a sudden frost is fam- 
iliar enough in our changeable climate, and must probably be 
common in other countries with similar climatic conditions. But 
so far as I can ascertain, this mode of ice formation does not seem 
to have been adequately described or its peculiarities to have 
