Abstract
As the question of earth-bearing ice-pillars has been recently raised in your columns (pp. 464, 485), there are one or two points to which I should like to direct attention, as they may be of interest to your readers. While working in company with a colleague on Divis Mountain, Belfast, in 1902, our attention was attracted by the peculiar formation of ice so admirably described by your correspondent of March 15. It seemed perfectly obvious that the ice-pillars had, in growing, lifted the earth and stones by exerting a pushing force in the direction of their length, and that without lateral support, putting the expansive force of water on freezing out of the question as an explanation. All doubt on this point was removed by our finding an impression of a nailed boot, made in the mud before the frost, and on which the pillars had grown on all parts of the mud on which there were no impressions of nails, and were wanting wherever the nails had been. This gave a curious effect, as if the boot had been shod with long spikes, each nail being represented by a narrow cylindrical pit an inch and a half deep. The pressure of the nails had evidently destroyed the conditions which led to the formation of the pillars.
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WRIGHT, W. Peculiar Ice Formation. Nature 73, 534 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/073534d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/073534d0
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