NOTES ON ICE PHYSICS 

 BY CHARLES S. WRIGHT, 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 2 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 

 lands; 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. 



* Ice not in movement. 



