IBRAHIM ICE. 



plumage varies remarkably. It is a very splendid 

 bird. It sometimes appears in the Southern States 

 ,)f the Union. Other species are found in India, 

 Madagascar, cape of Good Hope, and Mexico. The 

 Greek and Roman writers contain many fabulous 

 stories relating to the ibis, which it would be superflu- 

 ous to repeat. Savigny, in his learned work Histoire 

 Naturelle et Mythologique de I' Ibis examines all the 

 questions connected with this subject. His chief 

 hypothesis is, that the ibis did not, in point of fact, 

 destroy snakes, but that the reverence attached to it 

 by the Egyptians arose from its return into their 

 country with the Etesian winds, at the commencement 

 of the season of abundance. The ibis mummies have 

 been found in great numbers in the excavations in 

 Egypt. 



IBRAHIM ; the Turkish for Abraham, and the 

 name of many sultans and grand viziers distinguished 

 in Ottoman history. Among them was Soliman's 

 grand vizier, born in Genoa, of the family of the 

 Giustiniani, and carried by pirates to Constantinople. 

 He was strangled in 1536, at the instigation of 

 Roxelana. (See Soliman ) Ibrahim Pacha, the 

 eldest son of the present pacha of Egypt, was born 

 about 1795, commanded an expedition toSennaar and 

 Dongola, and, in 1825 led the Egyptian forces against 

 Candia and the Morea. He desolated the Morea, 

 until the battle of Navarino, in 1828, put a stop to 

 his devastations. See Greece, 



IBYCUS ; a Greek lyric poet, contemporary with 

 Anacreon, in the middle of the sixth century before 

 the Christian era, and, according to the general ac- 

 count, a native of Rhegium in Italy. He went to 

 Samos during the reign of Polycrates over that 

 island, and passed the rest of his life there. It is 

 related, that, while on a journey, he was surprised 

 and murdered by robbers. Finding escape impossi- 

 ble, he declared that the cranes, which happened to 

 be flying over their heads, would revenge his death. 

 The robbers afterwards, in Corinth, seeing a flock of 

 cranes, one of them said ironically, " See the aveng- 

 ers of Ibycus." These words were heard by a 

 bystander, who reported them to the magistrates. 

 The robbers were in consequence seized, and, after 

 confessing their crime, were executed. Ibycus is 

 said to have left seven books of lyric poetry, in the 

 Doric dialect, and to have invented the musical 

 instrument called the sambuca, with a kind of poetry, 

 in whicli he sung his own life, and which was called, 

 after him, Ibycan. Only a few fragments of his 

 works have come down to us. The death of Ibycus 

 is the subject of Schiller's beautiful ballad Die Krani- 

 che des Ibykus (the Cranes of Ibycus). 



ICARUS. ee Daedalus. 



ICE ; every frozen liquid ; in a more limited 

 sense, frozen water. As soon as the temperature is 

 raised, the solid state again gives way to the liquid. 

 We see, then, that ice is nothing but water deprived 

 of its caloric, (q. v.). The freezing of water is a 

 phenomenon so remarkable, that the greatest natu- 

 ralists have thought it worthy of a careful investiga- 

 tion. Expose a glass, filled with water, to a degree 

 of cold producing ice ; an extremely thin film ot ice 

 is observed first on the surface of the water in contact 

 with the cold air. Slender threads of ice are soon 

 seen to shoot out from the sides of the vessel, gener- 

 ally forming with it obtuse or acute, seldom right 

 angles ; from these rays, new ones continually shoot 

 out, till the whole surface is covered with a single 

 coating ; while this process is going on, a great num- 

 ber of air-bubbles arise, as in boiling, which pass out 

 of the water when the congelation is slow ; but 

 when it is sudden, they are frozen in, and by their 

 expansion cause rents in the ice. Although cold 

 generally produces contraction, ice occupies a larger 



space than water ; It is hence specifically lighter, 

 and floats upon it. Those persons are in an error, 

 who suppose that ground-ice, as it is called, rises 

 from the bottom of the water after freezing. A 

 kind, however, called anchor-ice, appears to be 

 formed at the bottom, or, at least, under the surface, 

 of rapid rivers, perhaps owing to the comparative 

 slow motion of the water at the bottom of a stream. 

 It is well known, that stagnant water freezes sooner 

 than flowing water: perfect rest, however, seems 

 to be unfavourable to freezing, for we know b; 

 experience, that water perfectly still is not frozen 

 when its temperature is reduced much below the 

 freezing-point; but a little agitation is sufficient 

 to change it into ice. Sea-water, and in general all 

 salt water, freeze with greater difficulty, because the 

 salt and other ingredients retain the caloric longer. 

 Salt is, moreover, separated in the process of freezing, 

 and precipitated to the bottom, so that ice from sea- 

 water sometimes affords potable water. Salts, how- 

 ever, produce a degree of cold beyond the freezing 

 temperature, and, by means of them, we can cool 

 water much below the freezing-point, while it still 

 remains fluid. Most salts have this property ; espe- 

 cially nitre, muriate of ammonia, and common salt. 

 A degree of cold sufficient for the freezing of water 

 may be produced by them in summer, or even over 

 a fire. Artificial ice is formed, also, by exposing 

 pure water, in proper vessels, to sucb freezing mix- 

 tures. The more severe the cold, the greater the 

 hardness and firmness of the ice ; and the ice of the 

 polar regions can hardly be broken with a hammer. 

 In the severe winter of 1740, a house was built at 

 Petersburg, from the ice of the Neva, 52 feet long, 

 Ib'g wide, and 20 high; and notwithstanding the 

 enormous weight of the roof, which was likewise ot 

 ice, the lower parts of the building did not receive 

 the smallest injury. The pieces of ice were hewn to 

 the form and shape required, adorned and arranged 

 according to the rules of architecture. Before the 

 palace stood six cannons of ice, which were turned 

 on a lathe, with the carriages and wheels of ice, and 

 two mortars formed like cast pieces. The cannons 

 were six-pounders, which are commonly loaded with 

 three pounds of powder; these, however, were 

 loaded with only a quarter of a pound, and carried a 

 ball of stuffed hemp, and sometimes of iron. The balls, 

 at a distance of 60 paces, passed through a board 

 two inches in thickness : the ice of the cannons could 

 not have been much more than three or four inches 

 in thickness, and yet it resisted the force of the ex- 

 plosion. The ice which obstructs the navigation of 

 the arctic seas, according to professor Leslie, con- 

 sists of two kinds ; the one produced by the congela- 

 tion of fresh, and the other by that of salt water. 

 The snow on the islands or continents, being melted 

 in summer, forms collections of fresh water, which 

 soon freezes, and increases yearly, until the mass 

 becomes mountainous, and rises to the elevation of 

 the surrounding clifis. The melting of the snow, 

 which is afterwards deposited on these enormous 

 blocks, likewise contributes to their growth, and, by 

 filling up the holes and crevices, renders the whole 

 solid. VV r hen such a mass has reached the height of 

 1000 or 2000 feet, the accumulated weight, assisted 

 by the action of the ocean at its base, plunges it into 

 the sea, and it is driven southwards by the winds and 

 currents, and known to mariners under the name of 

 iceberg. The icebergs consist of a clear, compact, 

 solid ice, with a bluish-green tint. From the cavities 

 in them, the northern wlialers fill their casks with 

 pure fresh water. The other kind is the field-ice, or 

 frozen sea-water, which is porous, incompact, and 

 imperfectly diaphanous. It consists of splcular shoots 

 or thin flakes, which detain within their interstices 



