XIV. Some observations on sea-water ice

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1874
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspl.1873.0082; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspl.1873.0082

Many different opinions have been expressed as to the nature of ice resulting from the freezing of sea-water, all agreeing, however, in one point, that, when melted, the water is unfit to drink. During the antarctic cruise of H. M. S. ‘Challenger’ I took an opportunity of exa­mining some of the broken pack-ice, into which the ship made an excursion on the morning of the 25th of February, and also some ice which had formed over night in a bucket of sea-water left outside the laboratory port. The piece of pack-ice which I examined was, in substance, clear, with many air-bells, most of them rather irregularly shaped. Two portions of this ice were allowed to melt at the temperature of the laboratory, which ranged from 2° C. to 7° C. The melting thus took place very slowly, and made it possible to examine the water fractionally. My experiments consisted in determining the chlorine in the water by means of tenth-normal nitrate-of-silver solution, and observing the temperature of the ice when melting.