

COLD. 



Renon of 

 lh*cnU 



being mute 



. e in 

 North 

 America, 

 than at 

 placet UD- 

 iter the 

 wuneparal. 

 I.I < i Uti. 

 Hide in 

 Europe. 



Account of 

 lcchcrg, 

 i r itlindi 

 of ice no 

 i lit coi n of 

 North 

 Amciici. 



Manner in 

 which they 

 are form, 

 r-d. 



placet of the ttme latitude on the coast of Norway ; but 

 the difference I take to be occaiioned by wind blowing 

 constantly hen-, for 7 month* in the 1 J, bet w ton the 

 N. . and N. W. and passing over a large track of land, 

 and exceeding high mountains, &c. as before-mentioned. 

 Whereas at Drontheim in Norway, as I observed some 

 year* ago in wintoiing therr, the wind all the winter 

 comes from the N. and N. N. W. and crosses a great 

 part of the ocean clear of these large bodies of ice we 

 hud here perpetually. At this place we have constantly 

 every year 9 months frost ana snow, and insufferable 

 cold from October till the beginning of May. 



The vast bodies of ice we meet with IB our passage 

 from England to Hudson's Bay, arc very surprising, not 

 only as to quantity, but magnitude, and as unaccounta- 

 ble how they are formed of so great a bulk, some of 

 them beii>g immersed 10O fathoms or more under the 

 surface of the ocean, and onc-lifth or one-sixth part above, 

 and three or four miles in circumference. Some hun- 

 dreds of these we sometimes see in our voyage here, all 

 in sight at once, if the weather is clear. Some of them 

 are frequently seen on the coasts and banks of Newfound- 

 land and New-England, though much diminished. 



When I have been becalmed in Hudson's Straits, for 

 three or four tides together, I have taken my boat and 

 laid close to the side of one of them, sounded and found 

 1(K) fathom water all around it. The tide tloweth here 

 above four fathom ; and I have observed, by marks upon 

 a body of ice, the tide to rise and fall that difference, 

 which was a certainty of its being aground. Likewise, 

 in a harbour in the island of Resolution, where I con- 

 tinued four days, three of these isles of ice (as we call 

 them) came aground. I sounded along by the side of 

 one of them, quite round it, and found thirty-two fathom 

 water, and the height above the surface but ten yards ; 

 another was twenty-eight fathom under, and the perpen- 

 dicular height but nine yards above the water. 



I can in no other manner account for the aggregation 

 of such large bodies of ice but this : all along the coasts 

 of Straits Davis, both sides of Baffin's-bay, Hudson's 

 Straits, Anti:oui, or Labradore, the land is very high 

 and bold, and 100 fathoms, or more, close to the shore. 

 These shores have many inlets or fuirs, the cavities of 

 which are filled up with ice and snow, by the almost per- 

 petual winters there, and fi u/.en to the ground, increasing 

 four, five or seven years, till a kind of deluge or land- 

 flood, which commonly happens in that space of time 

 throughout those parts, breaks them loose, and launches 

 them into the straits of the ocean, where they are driven 

 about by the variable winds and currents in June, July, 

 and August, rather increasing- than diminishing in bulk, 

 being surrounded (except in four or five points of the 

 compass) with smaller ice for many hundred leagues, 

 and land covered all the year with snow, the weather be- 

 ing extremely cold, for the most part, in those summer 

 months. 



The smaller ice that almost fills the straits and bays, 

 and coven many leagues up the ocean along the coast, 

 is from four to ten fathoms thick, and chills the au- 

 to that degree, that there is a constant increase to the 

 large isles by the sea's washing against them, and the 

 perpetual wet fogs, like small rain, freezing as they settle 

 upon the ice ; and their being so deeply immersed under 

 water, and such a small portion above, prevents the 

 winds having much power to move them : for though it 

 blows from the north west quarter near nine months in 

 twelve, and consequently those isles are driven towards a 

 warmer climate, yet the progressive motion is so slow, 

 that it must take up many years before they can get 500 



or 600 leagues to the southward ; I am of opinion some CM- 

 hundreds of years are required ; for they cannot, 1 < ""Y~*' 

 think, dissolve before they come between the 50th and 

 MHh degree of latitude, where the heat of the sun 

 consuming the upper parts, they lighten and waste in 

 time : yet there is a perpetual supply from the northern 

 parts, which will so continue as long as it pleases the 

 Author of all beings to keep things in their present 

 state." 



A new and ingenious theory of the formation of these Pf ofesior 



huge masses of ice has been recently given by Professor \** " * , 

 T i- , i /! i r theory ot 



Leslie. As this explanation is founded on the result of ,),,. <J r . 



a very curious experiment, we shall make no apology for mation of 

 giving a full account of it in Mr Leslie's own words. Iceberg*. 



" When very feeble powers of ri frigeration are em- 

 ployed, a most singular and beautiful appearance is in 

 course of time slowly produced. If a pan of pt.rous 

 earthen-ware, from four to six inches wide, be filled to 

 the utmost with common water till it rise above the lips, 

 and now planted above a dish of ten or twelve inches di- 

 ameter, containing a body of sulphuric acid, and having 

 a round broad receiver passed over it ; on reducing the 

 included air to some limit between the twentieth and the 

 fifth part of its usual density, according to the coldness 

 of the apartment, the liquid mass will, in the space of an 

 hour or two, become entwined with icy shoots, which 

 gradually enlarge and acquire more solidity, but always 

 leave the fabric loose and unfrozen below. The icy 

 crust which covers the rim, now receiving continual ac- 

 cessions from beneath, rises perpendicularly by insensible 

 degrees. From each point on the rough surface of the 

 vessel, filaments of ice, like bundles of spun glass, are 

 protruded, fed by the humidity conveyed through its 

 substance, and forming, in their aggregation, a fine sil- 

 very surface, analogous to that of fibrous gypsum or sa- 

 tin-spar. At the same time, another similar growth, 

 though of less extent, takes place on the under side of 

 the pan, so that continuous icy threads might appear 

 vertically to transpierce the ware. The whole of the bot- 

 tom becomes likewise covered over with elegant icy fo- 

 liations. Twenty or thirty hours may be required to 

 produce those singular effects; but the upper body of 

 ice continues to rise for the space of several days, till it 

 forms a circular wall of near three inches in height, lea- 

 ving an interior grotto lined with fantastic groupes of 

 icicles. In the meanwhile, the exfoliations have disap- 

 peared from the under side, and the outer incrustation is 

 reduced, by the absorbing process, to a narrow ring. 

 The icy wall now suffers a regular waste from external 

 erosion, and its fibrous structure becomes rounded and 

 less apparent. Of its altitude, however, it loses but little 

 for some time ; and even a decomposition of congealed 

 films along its coping or upper edge, seems to take place 

 at a certain stage of the process. This curious effect is 

 owing to a circumstance, which, as it serves to explain 

 some of the grand productions of nature, merits particu- 

 lar attention. The circular margin of the ice, being near- 

 er the action of the sulphuric acid than its inner cavi- 

 ty, must suffer, by direct evaporation, a greater loss of 

 heat ; and consequently each portion ot thin air that 

 rises from the low cavity, being chilled in passing over 

 the colder ledge, must deposit a minute corresponding 

 share of its moisture, which instantly attaches itself and 

 incrusts the ring. Whatever inequalities existed at 

 first in the surface of the ice, will hence continually 

 increase. 



This explication seems to throw some light on the ori- 

 gin of those vast bodies of ice which occur within the Arc- 

 tic Circle, and which, towering like clustered peaks 



