/ 



92 



ICE 



REMARKS ONTHE 



the 7 



South, tlie temperature of the air and 



mufl be flill 



colder, and that the rigours of 



die winter are 



more than fufficient 



cool the ocean to 284.°. which 



■^ 



certainly 

 requifite 



for cono-ealing the aqueous particles in it; if we moreover confider, 

 that thefe fevere frofts are continued during fix or eight months of 

 the year, we may eafily conceive that there is time enough to con- 

 geal large and extenfive malTes of ice. But it is likewife certain, 



r 



that there is more than one way, by which thofe immenfe ice maffes^ 

 are formed. "We fuppofe very juftly, that the ocean does freeze,, 

 having produced fo many inflances of it ; v/e allow likewife that the 

 ice thus formed in a calm; perhaps does not exceed three or four 



1 thicknefs * > a ftorm probably often breaks fuch an ice- 

 field, v/hich Crantz allows to be 200 leagues one way, and eighty 



yards i 



the other; the prelTure of the broken fragments^ againfl one ano^ 

 ther, frequently fets one upon the other piece, and they freeze ia 

 that manner together; feveral fuch double pieces, thrown by ano- 



ther prefTure upon 



another, form at laft large maffes of miles 



j' 



extent, and of twenty, forty, fixty and more fathoms thicknefs, or of 



a great bulk and height. Martens -f in his defcription of Spitz- 



bergen, remarks that the pieces of ice caufe fo great a noife by their 



fhock, that the navigator in thofe regions, can only, with difficulty 



hear 



* Crantz, p. 31-. 

 \ Martens Voyages au Nord. torn. 11. p. 62, 



