When a piece of ice, though of a considerable
size, can be distinguished in its extent, it is termed a _floe_. A
number of sheets, large or small, joining each other, and stretching out
in any particular direction, constitute a _stream_. Captain Cook found a
stream extending across Behring's Straits, connecting eastern Asia with
the western extremity of North America. Owing to the vast extent of some
fields of ice, they would undoubtedly be conducted to a lower latitude
in the Atlantic before their dissolution, under the influence of a
warmer climate, but for the intervention of other causes. It frequently
happens that two masses are propelled against each other, and are both
shivered into fragments by the violence of the concussion. The ordinary
swell of the ocean also acts with tremendous power upon a large tract,
especially when it has been so thawed as to have become thin, and breaks
it up into a thousand smaller pieces in a very short period. The danger
of being entrapped between two ice-fields coming into contact with each
other is one of the perils which the navigator has frequently to
encounter in the northern seas; and fatal to his vessel and his life has
the occurrence often been, while in a vast number of instances escape
has seemed almost miraculous.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85