76 Dr. Fothergill’s account of’ ice islands. 
grateful remedy in allaying thirst and rere: intemperate heat in 
ardent and malignant fevers. 
In Bengal ice is formed artificially, and rooms are cooled by the 
continued evaporation of cloths, frequently sprinkled with water. 
That the evaporation and liquefaction of ice islands may affect the tem- 
perature of the adjacent climates to a great extent cannot be doubted.* 
The variable winds waft the atmosphere that surrounds them far 
and wide, diffusing cool breezes along the coasts of the inland coun- 
tries. Hence the spring and part of the summer of 1805 was cool and 
temperate, while the evaporation from the immense bodies of ice con- 
tinued.t But after they were wholly dispersed, about the first of Ju- 
ly fet hot as season Bugemamenced, and ay increased till the 10th, when 
my 1 ter, in the shade, reached 96°, and continued vibrating 
between 84° aa “90° till August 27, when it eee with a north- 
east wind dropped to 75°. 
mnco 
Method of bar off the dangerous effects of ice islands. 
Having already in a former work pointed out the chief causes of 
shipwreck and the means of prevention,{ the present a being 
postponed now justly claims a separate discussion. i 
Whatever theory philosophers may adopt respecting the origin 
of ice islands, the principal object of this memoir is to propose a few 
smmple rules, by which seamen may be enabled to stéer clear of them. 
1. In order to avoid eas in en voyages the ship ought to 
* Thus the wind, which passes over the polar ices, renders Siberia the olka 
of inhabited countries. Pennant’s Arctic Zoology, vol. i. p. 172. 
+ Accordingly the spring proved propitious to vegetation, as the crops of grain 
and herbage were allowed to be abundant, particularly through the Atlantic states. 
¢ Prize essay on the preservation of shipwrecked mariners, second edition 
London, 1800. 
