210 HISTORY OF 



dred leagues in length, and, in many parts, sixty 

 or eighty broad. These are usually divided by 

 fissures ; one piece following another so close, 

 that a person may step from one to the other. 

 Sometimes mountains are seen rising amidst these 

 plains, and presenting the appearance of a varie- 

 gated landscape, with, hills and valleys, houses, 

 churches, and towers. These are appearances in 

 which all naturalists are agreed ; but the great 

 contest is respecting their formation. M. Buffon 

 asserts,* that they are formed from fresh water 

 alone ; which congealing at the mouths of great 

 rivers, accumulate those huge masses that disturb 

 navigation. However, this great naturalist seems 

 not to have been aware, that there are two sorts 

 of ice floating in these seas ; the flat ice, and the 

 mountain ice : the one formed of sea water only, 

 the other of fresh.t 



The flat, or driving ice, is entirely composed 

 of sea water, which, upon dissolution, is found to 

 be salt ; and is readily distinguished from the 

 mountain or fresh water ice, by its whiteness, and 

 want of transparency. This ice is much more 

 terrible to mariners than that which rises up in 

 lumps : a ship can avoid the one, as it is seen at 

 a distance ; but it often gets in among the other, 

 which sometimes closing, crushes it to pieces. 

 This, which manifestly has a different origin from 

 the fresh water ice, may perhaps have been pro- 

 duced in the Icy Sea, beneath the Pole ; or along 

 the coasts of Spitzbergen or Nova Zembla. 



Button, vol. if. p. 91. | Crantz. 



