Wafer relates, that near Terra del Fuega he met with many high floating pieces of ice, which he at first mistook for islands. Some appeared a mile or two in length, and the largest not less than 4 or 500 feet above the water.
All this ice, as I have observed in the sixth article, was brought thither by the rivers; the ice in the sea of Nova Zembla, and the Straits of Waigat come from the Oby, and perhaps from Jenisca, and other great rivers of Siberia and Tartary; that in Hudson's Straits, from Ascension Bay, into which many of the North American rivers fall; that of Terra del Fuega, from the southern continent. If there are less on the North coasts of Lapland, than on those of Siberia, and the Straits of Waigat, it is because all the rivers of Lapland fall into the Gulph of Bothnia, and none go into the northern sea. The ice may also be formed in the straits, where the tides swell much higher than in the open sea, and where, consequently, the ice that is at the surface may heap up and form those mountains, which are several fathoms high; but with respect to those which are 4 or 500 feet high, they appear to be formed on high coasts; and I imagine that when the snow which covers the tops of these coasts melts, the water flows on the flakes of ice, and being frozen thereon, thus increases the size of the first until it comes to that amazing height. That afterwards, in a warm summer, these hills of ice loosen from the coasts by the action of the wind and motion of the sea, or perhaps even by their own weight, and are driven as the wind directs, so that they at length may arrive into temperate climates before they are entirely melted.
[306:A] See Racolta d'autori che trattano del motto dell' acque, vol. 1, page 123.
[312:A] See Keil's Examination of Burnet's Theory, page 126.
[313:A] See Shaw's Travels, vol. ii, page 71.
[321:A] See Ovington's Travels, vol. ii. page 290.
[323:A] See Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. vi. part ii. page 119.
[325:A] Phil. Trans. vol. vi. part ii. page 19.
[326:A] See Varenii Geograph. gen. page 48.
[329:A] In contradiction to this idea it is now a generally received opinion, that the mountains of ice in the North and South Seas are exactly the same depth under as they are height above the surface of the water.