^^4 GREENLAND OR POLAR idSv 



wonder : yet the fields * of ice, more peculiar to 

 Greenland, are not less astonishing. Their defi- 

 ciency in elevation, is sufficiently compensated by 

 their amazing extent of surface. Some of them 

 have been observed near a hundred miles in 

 length, and more than half that breadth ; each 

 consisting of a single sheet of ice, having its sur- 

 face raised in general four or six feet above the 

 level of the water, and its base depressed to the 

 depth of near twenty feet beneath. 



The various kinds of Ice described. 



The ice in general, is designated by a varief/ 

 of appellations, distinguishing it according to the 

 size or number of pieces, their form of aggregation, 

 thickness, transparency, &c. I perhaps cannot 

 better explain the terms in common acceptation 

 amongst the whale -fishers, than by marking the 

 disruption of a field. The thickest and strongest 

 field cannot resist the power of a heavy swell ; 

 indeed, such are much less capable of bending 

 without being dissevered, than the thinner ice 

 which is more pliable. When a f^eld, by the set 

 of the current, drives to the southward, and being 

 deserted by the loose ice, becomes exposed to the 

 effects of'Q, grow?i swell, it presently breaks into a 



* A ^eld is a continued sheet of ice, so large, that its boui^ 

 Varies cannot be seen from the summit of a ship's mast. 



