NATURAL HISTORY. 



541 



mountainous ice existing, and 

 probably constantly increasing in 

 the ocean, at a distance of between 

 three and four hundred miles from 

 any known land : indeed, it must 

 be so completely siieltered by the 

 exterior drift or field ice in every 

 direction, that there seems every 

 facility afforded for its growth, 

 that a sheltered bay in the land 

 could supply. 



Oh the growth of Icebergs formed on 

 the Sea. 



As the difference in the appear- 

 ance of the ice of fields, and of 

 that formed in places within our 

 observation, seems to require the 

 deposition of moisture from the 

 atmosphere for explaining the 

 phenomenon; so, the similarity 

 of the ice of bergs with that of 

 fields, (whether generated in bays 

 of the land, or in regions nearer 

 the Pole)j is a reason for admit- 

 ting the operation of the same 

 causes in tlieir production. If we 

 can conceive, from the before- 

 mentioned process of the enlarge- 

 ment of fields by the addition of 

 the annually deposited humidity, 

 that a few years are sufficient for 

 the production of considerable 

 fields of ice, what must be the 

 effect of fifty or sixty centuiies 

 affording an annual increase in un- 

 disturbed security ? 



If, therefore, we add to the 

 precipitations fiom the atmo- 

 sphere, the stores supplied by the 

 sea, and allow the combination of 

 these two by the agency of an in- 

 tense frost, and conceive also a 

 state of quiescence for the opera- 

 tion of these causes, secured for 

 ages, the question of the mode of 

 production of the most enormous 



ice mountains seem to have a suffi- 

 cient solution. 



Loose icebergs, it has been ob- 

 served, are but sparingly dissemi- 

 nated in the Greenland Seas, but 

 in Davis' Straits they abound in 

 astonishing profusion. Setting 

 constantly towards the south, they 

 are scattered abroad to an amazing- 

 extent. The Banks of Newfound- 

 land are occasionally crowded 

 with these wonderful productions 

 of the frigid zone. They have 

 been met with as far south as the 

 latitude of 40° N., a distance of at 

 least 2100 miles from their source. 



Icebergs numerous in the Antarctic 

 Zone. 



The indefatigable Captain Cook, 

 when exploring the regions beyond 

 the antaictic circle, met with ice- 

 bergs on every course, in great 

 abundance, as well as of vast size 5 

 many, according to Forster, were 

 one or two miles in extent, and 

 upwaids of a hundred feet above 

 the water, and might be supposed 

 to be sunk to ten times that depth. 

 On the 26th of December 1773, 

 they counted 186 icebergs from 

 the mast-head, whereof none were 

 less tlian the hull of a ship. 



Icebergs useful to the Whale- Fishers. 



Icebergs, though often danger- 

 ous neighbours, occasionally prove 

 useful auxiliaries to the whale- 

 fishers. Their situation in a 

 smooth sea, is very little affected 

 by the wind : under the strongest 

 gale, they are not perceptibly 

 moved; but, on the contrary, have 

 the appearance of advancing to 

 windward, fiom every other de- 

 scription of ice moving so rapidly 

 past them, on account of its find- 

 ing; 



