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The Greenland, or Polar Ice (When the collection of pieces)

"When the collection of pieces can be seen across, if it assume a circular or polygonal form, the name of patch is appl applied, and it is called a stream when its shape is more of an oblong, how narrow soever it may be, provided the continuity of the pieces is preserved. " Pieces of very large dimensions, but smaller than fields, are denominated floes: thus, a field may be compared to a pack, and a floe to a patch, as far as regards their size and external form. "Small pieces which break off, and are separated from the larger masses by the effect of attrition, are called brash-ice, and may be collected into streams or patches. " Ice is said to be loose or open, when the pieces are so far separated as to allow a ship to sail freely amongst them: this has likewise been called drift-ice. "A hummock is a protuberance raised upon any plane of ice above the common level. It is frequently produced by pressure, where one piece is squeezed upon another, often set upon its edge, and in that position cemented by the frost. Hummocks are likewise formed by pieces of ice mutually crushing each other, the wreck being heaped upon one or both of them. To hummocks, the ice is indebted for its variety of fanciful shapes, and its picturesque appearance. • They occur in great numbers in heavy packs, on the edges, and occasionally in the middle of, fields and floes. They often attain the height of thirty feet or upwards. "A calf, is a portion of ice which has been depressed by the same means as a hummock is elevated. It is kept down by some larger mass, from beneath which it shews itself on one side. I have seen a calf so deep and broad, that the ship sailed over it without touching, when it might be observed on both sides of the vessel at the same time: this, however, is attended with considerable danger, and necessity alone warrants the experiment, as calves have not unfrequently (by a ship's touching them, or disturbing the sea near them) been called from their submarine situation to the surface, and with such an accelerated velocity, as to stave the planks and timbers of the ship, and in some instances to reduce the vessel to a wreck. "Any part of the upper superficies of a piece of ice, which comes to be immersed beneath the surface of the water, obtains the name of a tongue. "A bight signifies a bay or sinuosity, on the border of any large mass or body of ice. It is supposed to be called bight, from the low word bite, to take in, or entrap; because, in this situation, ships are sometimes so caught by a change of wind, that the ice cannot be cleared on either tack; and in some cases, a total loss has been the consequence."

ON THE TREMENDOUS CONCUSSIONS OF FIELDS OF ICE.- The occasional rapid motion of fields, with the strange effects produced on any opposing substance, exhibited by such immense bodies, is one of the most striking objects this country presents, and is certainly the most terrific. They not unfrequently acquire a rotary movement, whereby the circumference attains a velocity of several miles per hour. A field, thus in motion, coming in contact with another at rest, or, more especially, with a contrary direction of movement, produces a dreadful shock. The consequences of a body of more than ten thousand millions of tons in weight, meeting with resistance when in motion, may be better conceived than expressed! The weaker field is crushed with an awful noise; sometimes the destruction is mutual: pieces of huge dimensions and weight are not unfrequently piled upon the top, to the height of twenty or thirty feet, whilst doubtless a proportionate quantity is depressed beneath. The view of these stupendous effects, in safety, exhibits a picture sublimely grand; but where there is danger of being overwhelmed, terror and dismay must be the predominant feelings. The whale-fishers at all times require unremitting vigilance to secure their safety, but scarcely in any situation so much; as when navigating amidst those fields: in foggy weather, they are particularly dangerous, as their motions cannot then be distinctly observed. It may easily be imagined, that the strongest ship can no more withstand the shock of two fields, than a sheet of paper can stop a musket-ball. Numbers of vessels, since the establishment of the fishery, have been thus destroyed; some have been thrown upon the ice, some have had their hulls completely torn open, and others have been buried beneath the heaped fragments of the ice.

ICEBERGS.-"The term icebergs has commonly been applied to those immense bodies of ice situated on the land, 'filling the valleys between the high mountains,' and generally exhibiting a square perpendicular towards the sea. They recede back ward inland to an extent never explored. Martin, Crantz, Phipps, and others, have described those wonders of nature, and all agree as to their manner of formation, in the congelation of the sleet and rains of summer, and of the accumulated snow, partly dissolved by the summer sun, which, on its decline, freezes to a transparent ice. They are as permanent as the rocks on which they rest: for although large portions may be frequently separated, yet the annual growth replaces the loss, and probably on the whole, produces a perpetual increase. I have seen those styled the Seven Icebergs, situated in the valleys of the north-west coast of Spitzbergen; their perpendicular front may be about 300 feet in height, the green