Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/354

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6,000,000,000 of tons, its depth being about one hundred and sixty feet. Around its border was thrown up on all sides a sort of mountain chain of last year's ice, the loftiest pinnacle of which was one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea. This ice-hill, as it might well be called, was made up of blocks of ice of every shape and of various sizes, piled one upon the other in the greatest confusion. Numerous forms equally rugged, though not so lofty, rose from the same ridge, and from every part of this desolate area; and if a thousand Lisbons were crowded together and tumbled to pieces by the shock of an earthquake, the scene could hardly be more rugged, nor to cross the ruins a severer task.

The origin of such a floe dates back to a very remote period. That it was cradled in some deep recess of the land, and there remained until it had grown to such a thickness that no summer's sun or water's washing could wholly obliterate it before the winter cold came again, is most probable. After this it grows as the glacier grows, from above, and is, like the glacier, wholly composed of fresh ice,—that is, of frozen snow. It will be thus seen that the accumulation of ice upon the mountain tops is not different from the accumulation which takes place upon these floating fields, and each recurring year marks an addition to their depth. Vast as they are to the sight, and dwarfs as they are compared with the inland mer de glace, yet they are, in all that concerns their growth, truly glaciers—pigmy floating glaciers. That they can only grow to such great depth in this manner will be at once apparent, when it is borne in mind that ice soon reaches a maximum thickness by direct freezing, and that its growth is arrested by a natural law.