Thank you for visiting SNEWPapers!
Sign up free
Daily National Intelligencer
Washington, District Of Columbia
What is this article about?
Letter from Copenhagen details massive ice breakup off eastern Greenland, detaching 450 sq miles after 400 years, opening access to 82° N; floating ice reaches southern latitudes, coincides with unusual Danish weather including May hail; potential drift to American coasts but likely south; carries trees, explaining Jura granites.
Clipping
OCR Quality
Full Text
A letter from Copenhagen communicates the following detail, upon the breaking up of the ice on the coast of Greenland.
"Four hundred and fifty square miles of ice have recently detached itself from the eastern coast of Greenland and the neighboring regions of the Pole. It was this mass which, during four hundred years, had rendered that Province at first difficult of access, and afterwards inaccessible, so as even to cause its existence to be doubted. Since 1786 the reports of the whalers have invariably referred to some changes, more or less considerable, in the seas of the North Pole; but at the present time so much ice has detached itself, and such extensive canals are open amidst what remains, that they can penetrate without obstruction, as far as the 82d degree.
"All the seas of the north abound with these floating masses, which are driven to more temperate climates. A packet from Halifax fell in with one of those islands in a more southern latitude than the situation of London; it appeared about half a mile in circumference, and its elevation above the water was estimated at two hundred feet. This breaking up of the Polar ices coincides with the continual tempests from the south east, accompanied with heats, rains, storms, and a very electrical state of the atmosphere; circumstances, which during three years have caused us to experience, in Denmark, hot winters and cold humid summers. On the 25th of May there fell at Copenhagen five showers of hail, to each of which succeeded a dead calm.
"Many mariners are apprehensive, that the ice will fix itself on the eastern coasts of America; but while the north east winds prevail, these floating masses will disappear in the southern ocean. Some of these floating islands conveyed forests and trunks of trees. We notice this last fact principally for the satisfaction of geologists who attribute to phenomena of this sort the blocks of foreign granite found in the chain of the Jura mountains, and conveyed at the epoch when our highest mountains were covered with water."
What sub-type of article is it?
What keywords are associated?
Where did it happen?
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Greenland
Event Date
25th Of May
Outcome
four hundred and fifty square miles of ice detached, opening canals to the 82d degree; floating ice masses driven south, some reaching latitudes south of london; coincided with tempests, heats, rains, storms, electrical atmosphere, hot winters, cold humid summers in denmark; hail showers on 25th of may followed by calms; potential fixation on american coasts but likely to disappear south with northeast winds; some ice conveyed forests and tree trunks.
Event Details
A letter from Copenhagen reports that 450 square miles of ice detached from eastern Greenland and polar regions after 400 years of inaccessibility; whalers noted changes since 1786; extensive canals now open for penetration to 82d degree; northern seas abound with floating ice driven to temperate climates; a Halifax packet encountered an ice island half a mile in circumference, 200 feet high, south of London's latitude; breaking coincides with southeast tempests, heats, rains, storms, electrical atmosphere causing unusual weather in Denmark; fears of ice on American coasts but expected to drift south; some ice carries forests and trees, relevant to geologists for explaining foreign granite in Jura mountains.