saw sea birds, whales, and storm petrels, the usual attendants on ice.

Mr. Scoresby (Arctic Regions) is the principal authority respecting the season when the "barrier of ice" first broke away, and afforded materials for the encumbering of the Atlantic with the masses which, we see from the above account, have, since 1816, been met with by vessels sailing to the westward. He particularises the following seasons:1803, open, weather tempestuous, wind N. E.; 1804, close; 1805, as usual; 1806 and 1807, close, wind N. E.; 1808, nearly open; 1809, close; 1810, as 1804; 1811, uncommonly close; 1812, more singularly close, most formidable season [the year of Bonaparte's retreat from Moscow]; 1813, open, uncommonly tempestuous, wind E.; 1814, open, wind s. and w.; 1815, open; 1816, partially open; 1817, especially open; the coast east of Greenland seen for the first time since 1607; 1818, less open, but more so than usual. (Scoresby, i. 276., and § vii. 284.) "In these two seasons of 1817 and 1818, the sea was more open than on any former occasion remembered by the oldest fishermen; an extent of sea amounting to about 2000 square leagues of surface, included between the parallels of 74° and 80° N., being quite void of ice, which is usually covered by it." (Scoresby, Arctic Regions, i. 284. See also Quarterly Review, viii. 203.) The map of the ice appended to Mr. Scoresby's narrative shows distinctly the extent of the change thus produced, and is very instructive.

Since the years above named, the Atlantic has never been entirely free from ice; but there have been periods, when the cold has been particularly severe, and the ice in both hemispheres has been especially disturbed.* From 1826 to

1828, ice was found floating off the Cape of Good Hope as low as 39° to 36° s. lat.; and, on April 20. 1828, the Eliza, from Antwerp to Batavia, met with five icebergs in 37° 31′ s., and 18° 17′ E., against which the sea broke violently. (Horsburg, P. T. 1828.) From 1827 to 1829, the coasts of Labrador and Greenland were more encumbered with ice and snow than before known.† In April, 1825, also, immense icebergs were met with, three days' sail from Newfoundland.

The cause of the disruption of the ice from the polar seas is, by the Quarterly Reviewer, said to be "its own weight;" and he states, as a singular coincidence, that the needle became

* Capt. Parry saw the first iceberg, in 1824, on June 16., in 60-75° lat., 55° long.

+ The winter of 1828 commenced at Fahlun, in Sweden, by so great a fall of snow, in the end of September, that commerce was interrupted. (Hamburgh Journal, Oct. 6. 1828.)

stationary at the time he alludes to, 1817. (xviii. 203.) Now, there are reasons, why this is a most unsatisfactory explanation. That the magnetic needle might be contemporaneously affected, and that, at the period when its variation altered, a great change might take place in the earth's organism, is more than conjectural; and that fact might have pointed out a cause for the "breaking loose" of the ice less unphilosophical than has been assigned. The years 1816, 1817, and 1818 were celebrated for earthquakes; and Mr. Scoresby_has actually mentioned that, on April 29. 1818, Bird (or Egg) Island, a dependence of Jan Mayen's Island, was smoking; and it is probable that there were eruptions before; for the space whence the ice was removed is volcanic. In accordance with the state of things a few years later, we find that, in 1828, the glacier of Skideraa Jokul, in Iceland, was in eruption (Gruithuisen, p. 42.); and Capt. Ross states that the winter of 1829 was the mildest on record; that the season of 1831-2 was tremendously cold, and that of 1832-3 very mild. Capt. Parry states, also, that 1818 and 1825 were unusually mild. (Third Voyage, p. 151.) Dr. Bessert has furnished us with some particulars respecting the seasons at Kreminiec in Volhynia (in lat. 50° 5' N., long. 23° 21′ E. from Paris), four miles from the Austrian and Russian frontiers of Brody, from 1815 to 1830, by which it appears that 1818 was an early year, and 1829 a most extraordinary season for mildness; and that, from 1820 to 1830, no frost occurred there, only snow, in winter; and that the summers were free from rain, producing famine of usual food. I can only refer, as a confirmation of my views, to the statements respecting the numerous earthquakes of 1829, given by me in VI. 201., which correspond exactly with the state of the ice at that period in both hemispheres. It is easy to show, by the records of the years 1816, 1817, 1818, that the earth was generally heated at that time by volcanic agency; and the

*Arctic Regions, i. 166. There was, it would seem, an eruption or earthquake in Jan Mayen, on Sept. 8. 1633-4.

+ Responsum ad Quaestiones Consili Medici Imperü d. Oct. 15. 1830 datas, et a Consilio Medico Volhynico d. Nov. 18. 1830 communicatas, cum W. Besser, M. D. The doctor says,-"Rarissima hyems fuit A. 1829, ubi via pro trahis per quatuor menses non interrupta duravit, alias vix per duo menses sine interruptione observatur." "Cerasi avium plerumque Aprilis 25. incipiunt florere. Rarus casus fuit A. 1818, ubi jam Aprilis 8. effloruere." He says, also, that, in 1812, the cold commenced in October; that, in 1813, melons were destroyed by frost, on May 12. (24.); and that, in 1829, snow fell in November, but melted at sunrise.

One of the Andes was also in eruption in 1829. (Boussingault.)
VOL. VII.

- No. 44.

SS

state of the earth in 1827, 1829*, 1833, 1834, tallies also with the recent descent of the ice from the poles. To what, then, can we attribute the "breaking up" and " and "floating away" of the ice since 1816, but to the one universal agent, the influence of an increased terrestrial heat? The year 1833 parallels, as we have seen, in all respects, that of 1818; and both periods are parallels of that of 1348, when a greater disruption of ice took place, and, in consequence, the coast, now partially free, was encumbered. The cause which has operated recently, doubtless operated in 1348; and the blocking up was, there is every reason to believe, occasioned by the same agency as the breaking up. It was accident, perhaps, which first grounded the foundation ice of the “rampart;" and the same accident may occur again. There is no reason to believe that either cold or mildness are of any fixed duration in the polar seas; and there is every reason to believe that the changes of climate there depend, in great measure, on the developement or inactivity of subaqueous and subterranean heat.

I will allow that, in 1348, the blocking up of lower latitudes might have chilled Europe to an immense extent; but there is no ground for supposing that the more recent alterations in the ice in the Greenland seas, or its frequent melting in the Atlantic, can produce such an influence on the climate of England as has been asserted. If the position of the Quarterly Reviewer be a just one, it could have stood the test I have put it to in the foregoing remarks; and, therefore, since the year 1833 has been distinguished by an intensity and duration of southerly and westerly winds, not paralleled for twenty-four years: and since those gales have been accompanied with a warmth not paralleled for twice that length of time; since, also, the present year has been hotter than perhaps ever known, and the seasons at least a month earlier than remembered; and since, during both years, ice has been floating into low latitudes, we ought not to attribute the gales in question to the ice, which ought to produce "a raw, moist, chilly atmosphere," but to a cause which, despite the ice, has set the air in extraordinary motion, and heated the earth throughout. What that cause is, I have already surmised.

* In 1829, Kirauea, in the South Sca, was in eruption. (Stewart.) In 1831, there was an earthquake in Owhyhee: the sea is said to have risen in a pyramid, four or five miles from shore, "higher than the bread-fruit trees, which are 60 ft. or 70 ft. high. (Goodrich, in Silliman's Amer. Journ, xxv. 199.) In 1832, Jan. 12., Mouna Kea, in Oahu, erupted with violent earthquakes; and on June 20., Mouna Loa broke out for three weeks: the crater was filled up 50 ft. higher than the black ledge in Lord Byron's account. (Id.)

That the American continent, to a certain extent, may be affected by the ice, when this has received a lodgement on her shores, no one can dispute; and that a momentary passing chill may be produced, in the direction of the prevalent wind, by ice crossing that line, even in England, I would not deny; but this is the extent of the influence to which I would limit it. The inundations, hurricanes, and tempests of 1816, and even the accumulation of snow partially, in all probability, owed their origin to electrical agents, set in motion by the cause which filled the Atlantic with icebergs. Westerly and southerly gales, it seems, have blown on the other side of the floating ice; and, therefore, unless the American continent has been much colder than the ice, these winds cannot be caused by it. But it so happens, that the heat and drought experienced in Europe have been felt also in America, even in Canada, although the coasts of Canada and Newfoundland have been dreadfully chilled by a transported winter. It is said, that "in Virginia scarcely a night" occurred, in 1816, without frost, even in summer ; in New Orleans, the ice was 2 in. thick, &c. &c. (Quarterly Review, xviii. 447.) Now, can any man believe that frost in New Orleans is caused by ice melting in the latitude of 40°? + We have seen that the south of

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In Virginia, the south-west wind prevails in the summer. (Jefferson.) The latitude of New Orleans is 30° N, and its longitude is 90° 10′ w., and it is situated in the Gulf of Mexico, from which a warm current sets northwards, between the Bahamas and Florida, at the rate of four miles per hour, "which is not reduced to two miles till the stream has proceeded a distance of 1800 miles in the direction of Newfoundland, when it meets with a current setting to the southward from Baffin's Bay, and is thereby deflected to the east." (Lyell's Geol., i. 258.) "It retains, in the parallel of 38°, nearly 1000 miles from the above straits, a temperature of 10° Fahr. warmer than the air." (Id., p. 108.) Now, it is not pretended that the ice has come lower than 40°; and, even calculating the distance between 40° and 30°, in the same meridian, at about half distance between England and the spot where it was seen on October 30. 1833, still the difference of climate and the breadth of difference in longitude must upset the calculation; for we are told by a recent writer, that, even at Christmas, the heat at New Orleans is so great, that oranges, peas, and red pepper grow there in the open air. (Mrs. Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans, i. 9.) "The extreme limits of the icebergs in the northern hemisphere appears to be the Azores," or 42° E. (Lyell, Geol., i. 111.) Moreover, Mr. Lyell says, on undoubted authority, that the Gulf stream "maintains an open sea free from ice in the meridian of East Greenland and Spitzbergen." (i. 108.) The lowest latitude registered by the Quarterly Reviewer (xviii. 446.) is 41° 51', in long. 50° 53′ w., which is more than 1800 miles from the meridian of New Orleans, and consequently the iceberg in question was more than 2000 miles from New Orleans; the Gulf stream, the atmosphere above, and the Carib Sea intervening. The spot is scarcely more than 120 miles from that where the Emulous met with packed ice on Feb. 26. 1833; so that this memorandum will serve for both cases. Major Rennel estimates the distance between the Gulf of

Europe was chilled, in 1832, by some extraordinary cause (M. N. H., vi. 292.): and could that cause which produced ice at Smyrna, so that skating was practised, have been the melting of a few icebergs off the Azores? Was the cold, which was felt after the meteors of Nov. 1833, produced by the ice? At that time, the coast of America was beset by ice; yet we have the evidence of an eyewitness that America was unusually warm. (VII. 388.) † Was, also, the cold which followed the meteors in Germany (VII. 299.) occasioned by ice? Yet surely so, if the positions in the Quarterly Review, respecting 1816, hold good. How is it to be accounted for on that theory, that, while great accumulations of snow took place on the Alps during the last winter, the Pyrenees, so much nearer the melting ice of the Atlantic, remained free? And how do the statements respecting the ice in May and June, 1834, agree with the weather in England during those months? Less rain and warmer weather than since 1829 marked them; and not "a raw, moist, chilly atmosphere." As to the frost at New Orleans, it may be observed that, in New Grenada, from Dec. 11. 1808, to the end of Jan. 1809, the cold was greater

Mexico and the Azores at 3000 miles; and considers the stream to run that distance in about eleven or twelve weeks. Now, it is for these reasons that I conclude, that though the ice, to a certain extent, brought cold, and tempered the climate it passed through, the effects did not extend to New Orleans; but that the cold there, as in Mexico, New Grenada, &c., at certain seasons, had a different origin, though contemporaneous with effects actually produced by ice elsewhere. Ice at New Orleans is far more likely to be produced by a N. w. wind than a N. E. In the West Indies, I believe, ice is never naturally formed; but occasionally, when the winter in America is very severe, and the wind from the N. W Nevis, Antigua, St. Kitt's, &c., experience sufficient cold to cause the closing of shutters and doors: but this is all the effect produced.

*The thermometer, at Teflis, in Georgia, during the winter of 1832-3, stood at 35° Fahr.; at Alexandria, in Feb. 1833, there fell snow and hail; while it rained in Egypt for six months. (VI. 292.)

+ Maple sugar was made by the Indians on Dec. 31. Mr. Hildreth (Silliman's Amer. Journ., xxvi. 84.) states that, at Marietta in Ohio, lat. 30° 25′ N., 4° 28′ w. of Washington, the year 1833 was even milder than 1832; and that the spring was earlier by a week. After September, westerly winds were prevalent; i. e. winds that blew to, not from, the ice then melting off the coast of America. Such was the case, also, in the year 1831, when the United States were affected with unusual cold during the prevalence of westerly winds.

May, 1834, was warmer than any May since twelve years, except that of 1833 less rain fell than since 1829, though more than in 1833. The barometer stood higher than in any May since 1829. In June, 1834, the thermometer was higher than since 1822; and the barometer higher than in any May since 1827. The rain was less than the average, much less than in 1832 and 1833. The mean of the barometer only once exceeded in twelve years, viz. in 1829. From Register kept at High Wycombe. (Literary Gazette.)