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Show r so J Where :fluds CAssiOPE with flars unknown Her golden chair, and ge1ns her fapphire zone; Where with vafl: convolution DRACO holds The ecliptic ax1s in his fcaly folds, O'er half the :lkies his neck enormous rears, And with immenfe meanders parts the BEARS; Onward, the kindred BEARS with footflep rude Dance round the Pole, purfuing and purfued. " There in her azure coif and fiarry flole, 520 Grey TwiLIGHT fits, and rules the :£lumbering Pole ; Bends the pale moon-bean1s round the fparkling coafr, And flrews with livid hands eternal fro fl. 52 6 There, NyMPHS ! alight, array your dazzling powers; With fudden march alarm the torpid Hours ; lrtrhjlars unknown. l. 515. Al!uding to the fiar which appeared in the chair of Ca£llopea in the year 1572, which at firfi furpa!Ted Jupiter in magnitude and brightncfs,. climini{hed by degrees and difappeared in 18 months; it al.umed all the afironomers of the age, and was efteemed a comet by fome.- [ 51 ] On ice-built i.£1es expand a thoufand fails, Hinge_ the {hong helms, and catch the frozen gales ; On ice-built ijlfs. I. 529. There are many reafons to believe from the accounts of travellers and navigators, that the iflands of ice in the higher northern latitudes as well as the Glaciers on the Alps continue perpetually to increafe in bulk. At certain times in the icc-mountains of Switzerland there hapi'en cracks which have fhewn the great thicknefs of the ice, as fome of thefe cracks l1ave meafured three or four hundred ells deep. The gre:tt iflands of ice in the northern feas near Hudfon's bay have been obferved to have been immcrfed above one hundred fathoms beneath the furface of the !ea, aml to have rifen a fifth or Gxth part above the furface, and to have meafured between three and four miles in circumference. Phil. 'IIranf. No. 465. SeCl:. 2. Dr. Liiler endeavoured to !hew that the ice of fea-water contains fome falt and perhaps lefs air than common ice, and that it is therefore much more difficult of folution ; whence he accounts for the perpetual and great increafe of thcfe floating iflands of ice, Philo[. Tranf. No. 169. As by a f<lmous experiment of Mr. Doyle's it appears that icc evaporates very fa:l: in fevere froHy weather when the wind blows upon it; and as ice in a thawing fiatc is known to contain Gx times more cold than water at the fame degree of fenGble coldnefs, it is eafy to umderiland that winds blowing over iflands and continents of ice perhaps much below nothing on Farenheit's fcalc, and coming from thence into our latitude mufl: bring great degrees of colQ along with them. If we add to this the quantity of cold produced by the evaporation of the water as well as by the folution of the ice, we cannot doubt but that the northern icc is the principal fource of the ~oldnefs of our winters, and that it is brought hither by the regions of air blowing from the north, and which take an apparent eafl:erly direCl:ion by their coming to a part of the furface of the earth which moves fafl:er than the latitude they come from. Hence the increafe of the ice in the polar regions by increafing the cold of our climate adds at the fame time to the bulk of the Glaciers of Italy and Switzerland. If the nations who inhabit this hemifphere of the globe, infl:ead of de(l:roying their fea-men and exhaufiing their wealth in unnece!Tary wars, could be induced to unite their labours to navigate thefe immenfe malles of ice into the more fouthcrn ocean , two great advantages would refult to mankind, the tropic countries would be much cooled by their folution, and our winters in this latitude would be rendered much milder for perhaps a century or two, till the ma!Tcs of ice became again enormous. Mr. Bradley afcribes the cold winds and wet weather which fom etimes happen in May and June to the folution of ice-iflandsaccidentally floating from the north. Treatife on Hu!bandry and Gardening, Vol. II. p. 437· And adds, that Mr. Barham about H~ |
