ICE IN THE ARCTIC CUREENT. 446 



beyond the inlets of the sea, the country increases in breadth from East 

 to "West, and affords space for the original birth-place of these large Ice- 

 bergs. Neither Spitzbergen, nor the narrower parts of Greenland, nor the 

 Peninsula, nor the islands which surround it, are adequate in size to 

 produce the yearly excess of indissoluble Ice, which, from that large and 

 unknown continent, is very slowly protrtided. The friths or fiords, which, 

 piercing far into the country, receive and transmit the Icebergs, are 

 called Ice Friths. 



From November to June the water, in which the Icebergs are to 

 proceed to the Ocean, is so covered by the ocean lee, that they are shut 

 up in the inner ice friths ; but in July, and especially in August, they are 

 carried in mass by the current to the open sea. This is called the shooting 

 out of the ice friths, which lasts till late in the autumn, when the con- 

 tinual Easterly storms finally clear out the inner waters, unless the Ice- 

 bergs are intercepted by certain banks, on which they sometimes remain 

 long aground. 



(450.) Icebergs consist mostly of hard, brittle ice, of which the white 

 colour arises from very fine lineal pores, uniformly distributed through 

 the whole mass, all being of the same size, equi-distant, and parallel 

 throughout the whole Iceberg. This uniform structure may have arisen 

 at the time it was formed in the interior of the country from corned snow 

 — perhaps repeatedly thawed and frozen. The white Iceberg is in many 

 directions crossed by broad stripes of intense blue-coloured ice, which is 

 quite clear, and either contains no air bubbles, or, at all events, very 

 irregular ones. These blue stripes are several feet in thickness, and in 

 them are generally found " dirt bands " of foreign matters, such as stone, 

 gravel, and clay, which the Icebergs carry off embodied in them. The 

 blue ice is, by thawing, dissolved into regular large grains, which is not 

 the case with the white ice that forms the main mass of the Icebergs. 

 It seems probable that these blue stripes are formed by a filling up of the 

 fissures in the inland ice with water — perhaps mixed with snow, gravel, 

 and stones ; and such a refrigeration of the water in the fissures may be 

 supposed to be an important agency in setting in motion these great 

 mountains of Ice.* 



(4:51.) Iceland. — We have previously mentioned the stream of Ice 

 passing down the East Coast of Greenland. In some seasons this has 

 been known to envelop Iceland. Lieutenant Wandel states that around 

 Iceland, at least near Nordland, Bergs may be met with at all seasons of 

 the year, but the great masses of Drift Ice which hinder navigation usually 

 appear between December and April ; some years it may be almost 



* Transparent ice, free from interior spaces or bubbles, is one of the purest substances 

 iu nature, and it is not possible to detect the presence of the minutest portion of air, or 

 any substance that may have been held in solution by the water from which it is formed. 

 The strongest poisons, or colouring matter of any description, are most effectually 

 separated from water by the process of freezing it. This must, of course, only be under- 

 stood to refer to those masses which are quite clear and transparent, for spaces or 

 vacancies left in the ice will naturally contain portions of the adventitious matter. 

 Ice, therefore, is one of the best sources from which a supply of fresh and wholesome 

 ■water can be obtained, and if these hollows be washed in fresh water, ice water will be 

 found preferable to, and purer than any other. 



