226 Richard Adie, Esq., on the Temperatures of 



soon collects at the edges and on the surface, at places where 

 the water runs slowly or is shallow, this ice offers an impedi- 

 ment to the current, and thus often sends some of the water 

 of the stream over the surface of a portion of the ice, — a 

 position most favourable for its being frozen. In the river 

 Eden, near Carlisle, I saw specimens of ice of this kind ; 

 at one of the arches of the bridge there was a large table 

 of submerged surface-ice sunk one foot below the surface, 

 and rent up the centre. In the river Esk, near Mussel- 

 burgh, I saw a sheet of surface-ice at the edge of the 

 stream, frozen on the top of the gravel, and covered with 

 water one to two inches deep, in which a number of icy 

 spicula? had begun to form ; at some parts these spicules 

 were so numerous that the mass looked like wet snow. In 

 the river Almond, near Edinburgh, there were good speci- 

 mens of the manner in which ice, collecting in one part of a 

 river bed, forced the stream to flow in another portion of the 

 bed hitherto unoccupied by the current, which extended the 

 surface over which the water was exposed to a frosty atmo- 

 sphere, and thus rendered a running current of water a place 

 active in ice-making. In point of fact, it is, only on a more 

 extended scale, the process I have already described as seen 

 on the Pentland hills, where ice pillars two inches high were 

 formed in quantities during a single night's frost. 



The year 1854 was ushered in by a steady frost. On the 

 three first days of January I examined various rivers. The 

 ground at the time was thinly covered with snow, and the 

 temperature of the air ranged between 15° and 30° of Fahren- 

 heit. Severity was the prevailing character of the season ; 

 on the 2d the ice underneath the arches of the bridges over 

 the Union Canal, near Edinburgh, was strong enough to walk 

 over ; on the 3d I crossed the river Eden on the ice, a little 

 below the bridge at Carlisle, and I believe a period of many 

 years has elapsed since this river was passable on foot so 

 early in the winter. In succession I visited the following 

 streams — Portobello rivulet, near where it enters the estuary 

 of the Forth — temperature 32° ; ground-ice in every part of 

 the stream which favoured its lodgement ; the ice wore a gray 

 aspect from particles of sand and earth being lodged in it by 



