136 HAMPSHIRE STREAMS AND WOODLANDS 



the runnel was fringed with ice so formed as to lie 

 just above the surface ; and we fancied that we could 

 detect a regular pulse or beat in the stream, which now 

 brought the water level with the ice-fringe, and sent 

 the flattened bubbles coursing below it, now left it dry 

 and white and clear of the surface. But the strangest 

 freak played by the frost around and above the salmon- 

 pool, was the formation of ground-ice or " anchor 

 ice, ' as it is sometimes called deep below the un- 

 frozen surface of the water. 



The hanging mosses, at a depth of from three to 

 four feet, were covered with thick and clinging ice ; 

 and in the deep but rapid waters at the inrush by the 

 mill-head, rocks and stones far beneath were seen 

 coated and crusted with a semi-opaque and rounded 

 glaze of crystals. How it happens that ice, which 

 should float on the surface, forms and remains below 

 waters which are themselves apparently too warm to 

 freeze, we are not prepared to explain. But in this 

 case we forebore to test the stream, lest our operations 

 with a thermometer at the end of a string should be 

 mistaken for some new form of fish-poaching, a view 

 clearly taken by one observer of our experiments at 

 Winchester. 



