great increase of these floating islands of ice. Philos. Trans. No. 169.

As by a famous experiment of Mr. Boyles it appears that ice evaporates
very fast in severe frosty weather when the wind blows upon it; and as
ice in a thawing state is known to contain six times more cold than
water at the same degree of sensible coldness, it is easy to understand
that winds blowing over islands and continents of ice perhaps much below
nothing on Farenheit's scale, and coming from thence into our latitude
must bring great degrees of cold along with them. If we add to this the
quantity of cold produced by the evaporation of the water as well as by
the solution of the ice, we cannot doubt but that the northern ice is
the principle source of the coldness of our winters, and that it is
brought hither by the regions of air blowing from the north, and which
take an apparent easterly direction by their coming to a part of the
surface of the earth which moves faster than the latitude they come
from. Hence the increase of the ice in the polar regions by increasing
the cold of our climate adds at the same time to the bulk of the
Glaciers of Italy and Switzerland.

If the nations who inhabit this hemisphere of the globe, instead of
destroying their sea-men and exhausting their wealth in unnecessary
wars, could be induced to unite their labours to navigate these immense
masses of ice into the more southern oceans, two great advantages would
result to mankind, the tropic countries would be much cooled by their
solution, and our winters in this latitude would be rendered much milder
for perhaps a century or two, till the masses of ice became again
enormous.

Mr. Bradley describes the cold winds and wet weather which sometimes
happen in May and June to the solution of ice-islands accidentally