534 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1817. 



quantities that are dissolved and 

 dissipated by the power of the 

 waves, and tlie warmth of the 

 climate into vvliich it drifts. It 

 has frequently been urgied, that 

 the vicinity of land is indispensable 

 for its formation. Whether this 

 may be the case or not, the fol- 

 lowing facts may possibly deter- 

 mine. 



I have noticed the process of 

 freezing from the first appearance 

 of crystals, until the ice had ob- 

 tained a thickness of more than a 

 foot, and did not find that the 

 land afforded any assistance or 

 even shelter, which could not have 

 been dispensed with during the 

 operation. It is true, that the 

 land was the cause of the vacancy 

 or space free from ice, where this 

 new ice was generated ; the ice of 

 older formation had been driven 

 off by easterly winds, assi3;:ed per- 

 haps by a current ; yet this new 

 ice lay at the distance of twenty 

 leagues from Spitzbergen. But I 

 have also seen ice grow to a con- 

 sistence capable of stepping the 

 progress of a ship with a brisk 

 wind, even when exjjosed to the 

 waves of the North Sea and West- 

 ern Ocean, on the south aspect of 

 the main body of the Greenland 

 ice, in about the seventy-second 

 degree of nortli latitude. In this 

 situation, the process of freezing 

 is accomplished under peculiar 

 disadvantages. I shall attempt to 

 describe its progress from tlie 

 commencement. 



Freezing of the Ocean m a rough 

 Sea, 



The first appearance of ice 

 whilst in the state of detached 

 crystals, is called by the sailors 



sludge, and resembles snow when 

 cast into water that is too cold to 

 dissolve it. This smooths the 

 ruffled sea, and produces an effect 

 like oil in stilling the breaking 

 surface. These crystals soon unite, 

 and would form a continuous 

 sheet, but, by the motion of the 

 waves, they are broken into very 

 small pieces, scarcely three inches 

 in diameter. As they strengthen, 

 many of them coalesce, and form 

 a larger mass. The undulations 

 of the sea still continuing, these 

 enlarged pieces strike each other 

 on every side, whereby they be- 

 come rounded^ and their edges 

 turned up, whence they obtain 

 the name of pancakes : several of 

 these again unite, and thereby 

 continue to increase, forming 

 larger pancakes, until they be- 

 come perhaps a foot in thickness, 

 and many yards in circumference. 



Freezing of the Sea in sheltered 

 Situations. 



When the sea is perfectly smooth, 

 the freezing process goes on more 

 regularly, and perhaps more ra- 

 pidly. The commencement is si- 

 milar to that just described j it is 

 afterwards continued by constant 

 additions to its under surface. 

 During twenty-four hours keen 

 frost, it will have become two or 

 three inches thick, and in less 

 than forty-eight hours time, capa- 

 ble of sustaining the weight of a 

 man. Tiiis is termed bay- ice, 

 whilst that of older formation is 

 distinguished into light and heavy 

 ice ; the former being from a foot 

 to about a yard in thickness, and 

 the latter from about a yard up- 

 wards. 



It is generally allowed, that all 



that 



