62 Analyses of Books. [Jan- 
ARTICLE XI. 
ANALYSES OF Books. 
Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society. Vol. II. 
Part II. For the Years 1814, 1815, 1816. 
Tus part contains the following papers : 
I. On the Greenland, or Polar Ice. By W. Scoresby, Jun. 
Esq. M.W.S.—Mr. Scoresby has been in the habit of going 
annually to the Greenland seas, for these many years past, as a 
whale fisher. Being a man of excellent abilities, of good educa- 
tion, and a zealous observer, he has collected a vast number of 
curious and important facts, which must, when they are given 
to the public, contribute materially to the improvement of meteo- 
rology ; for the weather in the polar regions must influence mate- 
rially the winds and currents of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; 
which, in their turn, exercise a material influence upon the 
continents which lie on either side of them. In our report of 
the proceedings of the Wernerian Society, vol. vi. p. 142, &e. 
we gave an account of the present paper; but as the subject is 
very curious in itself, and particularly interesting at the present 
moment, when the public attention is drawn to the two voyages 
of discovery lately made to the arctic regions, we are induced to 
give an analysis of it, even at the risk of repetition. 
The whalers have distinguished the polar ice by a variety of 
names according to its state. A large ice plain, extending fur- 
ther than the eye can reach, is called a field. When a field, in 
consequence of a heavy swell, is broken into pieces, not exceed- 
ing 40 or 50 yards in diameter, which remain in close contact, so 
that they cannot be seen over from the ship’s mast, they are 
termed a pack. When the collection of pieces can be seen over, 
and when it assumes a circular, or polygonal form, it is called.a 
patch. When it is long and narrow, it is called a stream. 
Pieces of very large dimensions, but smaller than fields, are 
called floes. Small pieces which break off and are separated 
from the larger masses by the effect of attrition, are called brash 
ice. Ice is said to be loose, or open, when small pieces are so 
far separated as to allow a ship to sail freely among them. This 
has likewise been called drift tce. A hummock is a protuberance 
raised upon any plane of ice above the common level ; it often 
attains the height of 30 feet, or upwards. A ca/f is a portion of 
ice depressed by the same means as a hummock is elevated. Any 
part of the upper surface of a piece of ice, which comes to be 
immersed beneath the surface of the water, is called a tongue. A 
bight is a, bay, or sinuosity, on the border of any large mass or 
ae of ice. 
hen the ice is porous, white, nearly opaque, but having a 
