Touching the cold in the Little Ice Age

Climate change urges us to reconsider the very cold. Its natural manifestations – ice and snow – are today shrinking elements, and the gravity of melting glaciers and thawing polar regions is indeed deeply worrying for the planet as a whole. In this article questions will be raised concerning how cold was understood and imagined during the Little Ice Age, when the freezing cold was a regular part of the everyday life in large parts of Europe. The very cold became an object of enquiry for natural philosophers in unprecedented ways. The article focuses on Robert Boyle’s New Experiments and Observations touching Cold, or an Experimental History of Cold, begun (Lon­ don, 1665) and Margaret Cavendish’s Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (Lon­ don, 1666) and explores early modern English imaginaries of the polar regions, and how they join in the scientific debate on how to understand the cold.


Introduction
The effects of global warming, such as thawing glaciers, unpredictable snowfall and shrinking ice sheets, have sparked growing research interest in the freezing cold from disciplines that normally left the study of these matters to natural scientists."Ice humanities" is a newly established in terdisciplinary field of research that explores freezing temperatures with the objective to understand how "people and societies invent, create, and narrate ice (including snow) so it becomes not just physical but embedded in our minds and identities". 1From a climatological perspective, ice is linked to our planetary future and permeates the existential and emo tional dimensions of culture, arts, and language.Accordingly, making sense of our human predicament under climate change cannot be left to ice physics only.The initiators of ice humanities, Klaus Dodds and Sverker Sörlin, write that ice "is and will remain hyperpoliticized and culturalized" and they suggest that ice can be understood as a "crisis concept" parallel to the environment. 2Following the ice is thus to critically engage in Euro Western scientific knowledge of glaciers and the discovery of ice ages in history, as well as the long lasting and accelerating effects of the indus trial revolution, the exploration of Arctic regions from early nineteenth century onward and up to today's climate situation where the cryosphere has become a critical zone of global environmental change. 3n this article I wish to contribute to emerging scholarship in the ice humanities by calling attention to an earlier historical period in the north ern hemisphere known for its low temperature, the socalled Little Ice Age which culminated 15701710. 4My interest focuses especially on mid seventeenthcentury England due not only to the period's recurring freez es affecting the country, but also to the fact that it was during this time that the very idea of "coldness" had become an object of enquiry for British natural philosophers in unprecedented ways.According to one of the first volumes of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions (1665), the state, condition and properties of ice and cold temperatures had "hitherto bin almost totally neglected" as objects of knowledge. 5But, the journal continued, one of the society's fellows, Robert Boyle, had since stirred up public interest and debate by publishing "near Two hundred choice Experiments and Observations [on the cold, ice and snow], that cer tainly the Curious and Intelligent Reader will in the perusal therof find cause to admire both the Fertility of a Subject, seemingly so barren, and the Author's Abilities of improving the same to so high a Degree". 6Sim ilarly, in 1666, the natural philosopher Margaret Cavendish declared that the dispute concerning the cold, ice and snow, was much "agitated among the learned". 7It is in this context of "thinking with the cold" that several questions stand out for advancing current debates in the ice humanities: How were ideas about the cold imagined, created and narrated by early modern natural philosophers?How did the imaginary of the northern hemisphere play out in the production of knowledge about the cold?What can we learn from these early attempts to create scientific knowledge as well a philosophical imaginary of the cold, ice and snow?I will look into Robert Boyle's representation of the cold, ice and snow in New Experiments and Observations touching Cold, or an Experimental History of Cold, begun (1665). 8What is more, I will put Boyle's thoughts in play with his contemporary critic, Margaret Cavendish, who elaborated her contributions to the debate in Observations upon Experimental Philosophy (1666) and its companion novel The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing world (1666). 9For Boyle, experimental methods and measuring instruments applied to cold matter contributed original and local know ledge.His design was "to set down Matters of fact, not to write a complete and regular Treatise" on nature, as he declared in the preface to the book. 10onversely, Cavendish, positioned questions about the cold in relation to her general theory of nature, which critiqued a mechanistic understanding of nature as well as experimental philosophers' trust in scientific instru mentation.There is a considerable body of research on the natural phi losophy of Cavendish and the experimental work of Boyle, but less has been written on their reasoning about the cold. 11Therefore in comparing the two authors, and the particular image of the northern hemisphere in their work, Boyle and Cavendish offer important, contrasting vantage points to enlighten scientific debate on the production of knowledge about the cold, ice and snow in early modern England. 12uching the cold Boyle opened his History of Cold by declaring that the subject had gener ally been considered so barren that he was surprised by his own attempt to study it. 13Having said that, he hoped that his experiments and observa tions could "in some measure repair the Omissions of Mankinds Curios ity towards a subject so considerable, and so diffus'd". 14A crucial task indeed, since nothing wise had previously been said about the cold by either the classic authors or modern natural philosophers.How could there be so little knowledge about something so commonly experienced in the North?Though claiming novelty, Boyle's forerunner, Francis Bacon, had already pointed to the fact that the cold was worth examining, because it was nature's main instrument besides heat. 15Furthermore, contemporary thinkers like Pierre Gassendi, René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes had before Boyle challenged scholastic Aristotelian natural phi losophy by putting forward new theories of the cold, its causes and its different formations. 16So, Cavendish was right about the agitation.Heightened interest in the cold had decidedly to do with the general shift regarding knowledge of nature and the nature of knowledge, tradition ally called the scientific revolution.This shift involved, in the words of Christiana Christopoulou, a "reconceptualization of the concept of cold". 17Ice could thus be considered an early modern "crisis concept" accompanied by a plethora of contested queries: Was the existence of the cold the result of some positive quality or just a privation of heat, or both?Did the cold originate from the northern regions or was there a "primum frigidum"?Was it produced by violent winds or by corpuscular "seeds of cold" (frigorifick atoms)?How could one best explain the process of freez ing?Was there a difference between natural ice and artificially produced ice?Could the cold be measured -temperature, strength, weight -and with which scientific instruments?What generated icebergs and the expanse of sea ice?What explained the levity of ice?Etcetera. 18hese questions were dealt with in different ways by both Boyle and Cavendish, but to understand their significance, I want to underscore the role played by the authors' respective ideas about the North, their need for what I call a "northern imaginary" in order to conceptualise the cold and its various manifestations.As Dilip Gaonkar explains, a social im aginary refers to a shared sense of meaning, a setting "within which a people imagine and act as worldmaking collective agents". 19Charles Taylor has framed the concept as a sort of mental horizon of tacit and prereflective social meaning. 20So, what was this specifically northern imaginary of the cold in early modern England, and how did it affect popular as well as scientific renderings of it?During the Little Ice Age frosty winds, frozen rivers, and low temperatures were frequent and familiar experiences for the English, encompassing wondrous encounters as well as troubling situations.They could marvel at spectacular events like the big Frost Fairs on the frozen River Thames, but also suffer the bitter effects of frigid weather. 21In late 1650s, John Evelyn (an acquain tance of both Boyle and Cavendish) noted in his diary that recent winters had been so cold that "the Crowes feete were frozen to their prey: Islands of Ice enclosed both fish & fowl frozen, & some persons in their boates". 22et, for the scientific investigation of the cold, English winters were often unpredictable; as a natural philosopher you could do nothing but wait for the freeze, or seek it out in caves or mountainous regions, as Bacon had stated in Sylva Sylvarum. 23Artificially created cold was thus needed for the experiments Boyle set up, but such environments were difficult to create and maintain.He complained that, […] the Truth is, that I am plainly Tired with writing on this subject, having never handled any part of Natural Philosophy, that was so Trouble some, and full of Hardships, as this has proved; especially because, that not only the Experiments being New; and many of them subject to miscar riages, required to be constantly Watched, but being unable to produce or intend Cold as we can do Heat, nor command / the Experiments that concern Congelation […] I was fain to Wait for, and make Use of a Fit of frosty weather (which has very long been a rarity) as solicitously as Pilots watch for, and improve a Wind. 24ronically, the printing of History of Cold was delayed by a freeze.The publisher Henry Oldenburg commented in his preface that "when the Frost began, which was late in the season, the Coldness did within a while arrive at that degree, that by its operation upon the moisten'd paper, it long put a stop to the Proceedings of the Press". 25o really grasp the cold, ice, and snow, gazing northward seemed neces sary.Only in northern "countries cak'd with ice, where the pale Polestar in the north of heav'n sits high, and on the frosty winter broods", as the Saxon magician phrased it just before the frost scene in John Dryden's play King Arthur (1691) [act III, scene 2], nature revealed one of its instru ments, the cold, in plain sight to be observed and examined.In the North, the cold was according to Boyle's History of Cold, both stupendous and steadfast. 26The northern hemisphere and Arctic region consequently func tioned as a mental horizon that provided both imaginaries and knowledge of the cold, in contrast to southern Europe. 27I will soon elaborate on how this mental horizon was played out, but first some thoughts on gazing north from an early modern English point of view.

Gazing north
Robert Boyle and Margaret Cavendish never travelled North, but their writings on the cold display spectacular northern sceneries, the shivers of freezing winters and the horrid noise of breaking ice.Their readers were indeed brought to polar landscapes and chilly temperatures, just as the fictional mariners and the abducted heroine in Cavendish's Blazing world were "carried as swift as an arrow out of a bow, towards the North Pole, and in a short time reached the Icy Sea, where the wind forced it amongst huge pieces of ice". 28Certainly, ideas and fantasies about the Far North -Ultima Thule -had been circulating in Europe since Antiquity, and stories about a hyperborean utopia, a northern world of barbaric cruelty, sea monsters and harsh weather were without a doubt familiar to erudite persons like Boyle and Cavendish. 29But in early modern England, a new type of literature with stories of lived experiences of the cold was published and spread, such as seamen's journals and travel reports from the North. 30hough sceptical towards the more fantastical content in these testimo nies, Boyle made ample use of eyewitnesses from the North in his History of Cold. 31It is equally very likely that Cavendish was well informed about these contemporary hazardous travels in the Arctic region. 32In line with stories in circulation of English crews frozen to death (or near death), the villains in her Blazing World are caught in polar ice and die. 33Her heroine, however, was not affected by the cold; she survived and wandered off to meet friendly northern creatures.It could be argued that the polar region in Cavendish's narrative here functioned as a passage into an unknown world, a Blazing World beyond the constraints she experienced as an intel lectual woman in early modern times.But in seventeenth century England this was hardly the common intention of gazing north.
Heightened curiosity about cold polar landscapes and northern climates were, as hinted above, not just a matter for natural philosophers of the time.From the late sixteenth century onward the prospect of conquering the northern hemisphere for English political and economic interests was explored with increasing intensity.In Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield's words: "From a barely understood and scantily charted icy wasteland looming of a mythic past, it rapidly became a place of imperial possibility, offering abundant natural resources and new commercial routes that would allow English mariners to traverse the globe and access eastern markets". 34From a southern European point of view, England was often defined as a northern country, which suited the selfimage of the English people. 35In his book The Dream of the North, Peter Fjågesund brings this aspect to the fore.He points to the fact that early on, because of Britain's central geographical position in the North Atlantic and the strong Scandinavian presence in the country from the 800s onwards, the Arctic connection became a central and selfevident element in British cultural and political orientation. 36British people experienced a cultural and geographical kinship with icy nature and the cold climate of the Far North, which contributed to the strengthening of their sense of northern identity and selfconfidence.
In other words, despite the temperate climate, England's northward facing identity was cultivated alongside its colonial aspirations. 37English intellectuals such as the court astronomer John Dee convinced his coun trymen that the North was a lost British empire waiting to be rediscovered by Englishmen. 38The blazing northern light would shine over the world again, but now under British flag.In line with this, the British Crown supported northbound expeditions. 39The Muscovy Company (first known as the Mystery and Company of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places unknown) was founded in 1551 with the objective to find new northern trade routes for English com mercial interests.These imperialistic dreams were to some extent hindered by other northern powers such as the Danish Crown and competing Dutch trading companies.Yet, when Boyle published History of Cold in 1665, regular shipping routes to Archangelsk by the White Sea, trade agreements and diplomatic contacts between the Russian Tsar and the English Crown had long been in place.While the northern passages were fraught with danger, the seamen of the Muscovy Company guaranteed safe trade routes to the northeast, tackling northern winds, icy waters, and frozen har bours. 40Facilitating English travel northward, the Company also acted as eyewitness reporter of cold climates and thus became instrumental in the exchange of natural knowledge beyond that of trading wool and timber.
The Swedish bishop Olaus Magnus's Description of the Northern Peoples (1555), one of the most widespread sources of information on northern regions in early modern times and one of the references in Boyle's History of Cold, claimed that the bitter cold originated from the North and that physical experience was necessary to understand it: "The huge power which the frost, or cold, possesses in the North, as if this were its own native region can be demonstrated in many ways, through the sense of feeling rather than by authorities". 41Feeling the cold was thus crucial.Cavendish also stressed that the cold always appeared in, and could not be thought of without, some form of sensuous experience of "shaking, freezing, chilly, windy, numb, stiff, rare, dense, moist, dry, contracting, dilating, ascending, descending". 42Boyle too acknowledged that "Cold ness being a Tactile Quality, it seems impertinent to seek for any other judges of It than the Organs of that sense, whose proper object it is". 43evertheless, in relation to coldness he questioned the reliability of the senses.If the goal was to establish matters of fact about the cold, scien tific measuring instruments were indispensable to distinguish subjective sensations from objective registrations. 44Cavendish was on the contrary sceptical towards the value of these instruments and the ambition to grasp nature quantitatively, "since art is found out and practised by man, man conceits himself to be above nature". 45For Cavendish, therefore, the method of rational inquisition guaranteed a truer understanding of nature, which led her to the conviction that nature in all its parts was perceiving and knowing -qualities that an instrument could never de tect. 46As she declared: "Matter, selfmotion, and selfknowledge, are inseparable from each other, and make nature one material selfmoving, and selfknowing body". 47In her writings on the cold Cavendish thus introduces a "thinking with ice" that would consequently entail following the ice's own agency, a kind of relational reasoning that challenged the notion of human superiority and the objectification of the natural world by refusing to accept a privileged anthropocentric position in relation to knowledge. 48Indeed, this is an abstract way of what Dodds and Sörlin frame as "staging an encounter with the temporality, materiality, and spatiality of ice", 49 but it might also be interpreted as a way to look upon the cold from a northern perspective, beyond instrumentalism and colo nising desire.
Boyle was perhaps more in tune with British expansion and when con sidering the difficulties in setting up experiments on cold phenomena in England, he admitted that he "must either make use of other mens Testimonies, or leave some of the Remarkablest Phaenomena of Cold unmention'd". 50In a later chapter devoted to ice he further recounted: "though we shall deliver some few Experiments of our own, such as we had opportunity to make, yet much greater part […] be taken up by Col lections out of Travellers, and Navigators, into those Colder Regions". 51ogether with Olaus Magnus's book, mentioned above, Boyle consulted over forty printed testimonies from "Voyages into the Northern Coun tries" and travellers' lived experience of the bitter northern cold. 52Magnus had pointed to the difficulty of travelling in these parts, the power of the frost and the falls of snow were often so severe and "the weather with its thick, sudden mists, which darken the air, so dreadful, that travellers can not even tell whether a person they meet at close quarters is friend of foe". 53Many of the travel stories thus contained "little but melancholly Accounts of storms and distresses" Boyle wrote, but he also admitted that here and there useful information was provided of a great frost, or a great snow, or ice. 54He considered some sources more reliable than others.Steven Shapin has discerned a system in Boyle's choice of sources: "direct testimony was preferred to hearsay testimony; multiple testimony to single; knowledgeable sources to vulgar". 55Accordingly, the Dutchman Gerrit de Veer's famous and widespread eyewitness account of William Barents's three travels to Novaya Zemlya in the late sixteenth century was an obvious reference, as well as parts of Englishmen's explorations in the northern hemisphere included in Samuel Purchas's collection of travels. 56nother trusted informant of the cold, ice and snow was The Strange and Dangerous Voyage of Captain Thomas James (1633), from which Boyle said he "borrowed more observations, then from those of any other Seaman". 57ames, who had set out to discover the Northwest Passage, was regarded as an extra reliable source since he was both a gentleman and university educated. 58In Boyle's view, James was "enabled to make far better use then an ordinary Seaman would have done, of the opportunity he had to observe the Phaenomena of Cold, being forced to Winter, in a place where he endured little (if at all) less extremity of Cold, then that of Nova Zembla". 59In this context, Boyle considered eyewitness description by a person of James's calibre as empirical evidence of similar quality to the observations made during experimental sessions in England. 60And while Boyle was more critical towards the descriptions made by Olaus Magnus, for the reason that his stories were often based on hearsay, his learning and lived experience of the fierce northern cold made his writings credible all the same. 61Finally, with regard to wider accounts of northern cold and ice, the trustworthiness of a testimony was more important than how recent the observations were.The cold did not change.Depictions of the northern Russian climate in Of the Russe Commonwealth (1591) by English ambassador and Muscovy middleman Giles Fletcher was a case in point for Boyle, as well as information on the freezing cold in Russia collected by his friend Samuel Collins, during his time as personal physician to the Russian Tsar (1660-1669). 62Together these elements indicate that Boyle's notion of the freezing cold guiding his investigations was to a great degree informed by a "northern imaginary" formulated from retold British and Dutch encounters with Nordic landscapes.

Thinking with ice
Olaus Magnus considered the harshness of the cold a specifically northern experience.Margaret Cavendish was less sure.In the chapters devoted to the cold in Observations she spoke of "cold regions" and "cold climates" in the North, but her objective was not to explore the climates of these geo graphical areas, but to present philosophical arguments against any form of reduction of nature's actions.According to her own observations, ani mal perceptions of heat and cold were relative: A man can have fever in the coldest climate, and cold fits in the hottest climate. 63She also main tained that, […] there are so many several sorts of heat and cold, that it is impossible to reduce them all to one certain cause or principle, or confine them to one sort of motions […] some will apprehend cold weather sooner than others; the reason is, that in their perception of touch, the sensitive motions work quicker or slower in figuring or patterning out heat or cold. 64vendish claimed that the most rational opinion about the cold was related to the fact that nature in its totality consisted of rational matter, sensitive matter, and inanimate matter.Matter moves in various ways, but it is never mechanically determined as Boyle tried to prove.All of nature's constituent parts are perceptive and this perception consists of ordering -or, in Cavendish's words "patterning" -exterior objects. 65Feel ing the cold, or heat, was therefore one aspect of this perceptive activity, which was related to and dependent upon sensory circumstances, "for it is not the air that makes all cold; no, not that cold which is called elemen tary […] but the corporeal, figurative selfmoving, perceptive, rational and sensitive parts of nature, which make all other creatures, make also heat and cold". 66Cavendish thus explained freezing as a change of percep tion, and feeling the cold as a way of actively framing the world.This constant patterning of nature could not be reduced to something to al ready there or something exclusively human.A certain amount of creation and imagination was always involved in the production of knowledge in all parts of nature and geographical location, cold or not.This constant preceptive activity implied that nature must be considered as selfknow ing.The ice perceives us, patterns us.In one important passage she wrote: […] it is absurd to confine all perceptions of nature, either to pressure and reaction, or to the animal kind of perception; since even in one and the same animal sense, (as for example seeing) there are numerous perceptions: for, every motion of the eye, were it no more than a hairsbreadth, causes several perceptions: besides, it is not only the five organs in an animal, but every part and particle of his body, that has a peculiar knowledge and perception, because it consists of selfmoving matter [and] a piece of wood, stone, or metal, may have a perceptive knowledge of man, yet it hath not a man's perception |…] no more than the eye patterning out a tree or stone, can be said to have a vegetable or mineral perception. 67, it is no wonder then that Cavendish's thoughts did not match the title page motto of History of Cold: "What Nature may do or bring forth is not to be contrived or imagined, but rather uncovered". 68For Boyle, it made sense to acknowledge the relatively subjective perception of one's senses: the temperature experienced when dipping your body in cold water, for instance, varied depending upon how cold or warm the body was before touching the water.He called it a paradox. 69But Boyle's aim was to un cover temperatures, relations and effects of the cold independently of human interference, to set a "Perfect Standard of Cold". 70He wished it would be possible to perform experiments in those northern countries where the effects of cold were most remarkable, and envisioned weather glasses and thermoscopes transported from one country to another to discover "the differing Degrees of Coldness in differing Regions, and know (somewhat near) how much the Air even of Muscovy, or Norway, or Greenland it self, is cold then that of England […] The Instrument being accompanied with a memorial of the Degree, it stood at, when expos'd to such a Cold, as made water begin to freez". 71Unfortunately, the perfor mance of the instruments at hand was still unreliable.It was a matter of improvisation, as Christopoulou has stated.The thermoscopes used by Boyle could measure variation in temperature, but he had no standard scale.Christopoulou also argues that Boyle did not use "a concept of temperature where degrees of the two qualities could belong to the same scale and explained by the same natural process". 72Nonetheless, Boyle found the information that the instruments delivered "preferable to those of our senses, because those Dead Engins are not in such cases obnoxious to the same causes of uncertainty with our Living Bodies". 73he experiments performed in England dealt with measuring bodies and liquids capable of freezing and freezing others, degrees of coldness, and the tendency of the cold to move up or down, the expansive force of freezing water and other liquids, the levity of ice and the weight of frozen bodies, etcetera.Boyle's fascination with ice -the essential effect of the cold and the qualitative proof of the highest degree of cold -was shown by the number of experiments he performed that dealt with freezing of all kinds of liquids (sea water, clear water, urine, ale and beer, milk, wines of different sorts and spiritous liquors, various oils, gum Arabic solutions, vitriol solutions).The chapter "Experiments and Observations touching ice" straightforwardly opens with the declaration that the "Great part of our present History, being imploy'd about delivering the Phaenomena of Congelation". 74Congealed water on a larger scale and in colder conditions was nevertheless found elsewhere, so the discoveries made in England were contrasted with, or confirmed by, credible eyewitnesses "that had travelled either to Greenland, Terra Nova, or other gelid Climates". 75James had for instance noted that oil and wine found in the polar region would become "frozen as hard as a piece of wood, and we must cut it with a Hatchet", 76 while Collins reported from northern Russia that strong Claret wine did not freeze, while the beer froze easily and gave the ice the taste of hops. 77Other experiments which dealt with the expansion of water, proved to be compelling.As Boyle explained: We took a new Pewterbottle, capable to contain, as we guess'd, about half a pint of water, and having fill'd it top full with that Liquor, we scru'd on the stopple, and exposed it during a very frosty night, to the cold Air, and the next morning the water appeared to have burst the Bottle, though its matter were metalline, and though purposely for this trial we had chosen it quite new, the crack appeared to be in the very substance of the Pewter. 78is specific discovery was supported by a similar story from de Veer's description of the harsh period in Novaya Zemlya, when "the extreme Cold, both some of their other Barrels, and some of those that were hooped with Iron, were, as they speak, frozen in pieces, that is according to our Conjucture, burst together, with the Hoops, whether of Wood or Iron by the expansive force of the imprison'd Liquors brought to freez". 79The frozen liquids referred to were without exception brought by the travellers from the South to the North.Such observations of southern matter react ing to northern climates can be seen as part of "the white, western vision of the North" -an empty space for European powers to conquer and exploit. 80If not mastered, the Arctic cold threatened to metamorphose travellers and their gear into ice, which had happened to more than one crew. 81ven if Boyle was keen to prove that ice could be measured with the same accuracy in England as in the polar region, he could not avoid the strangeness of the northern ice.The dominant impression, as Christopher P. Heuer points out in his book on the visual poetics of the Far North in early modern times, was "of intractability, strangeness, and the 'per plexitie' of matter". 82The sublime quality of the Arctic landscape only came to be appreciated later. 83For Boyle, the stupendous cold of the North represented a kind of wonder and strangeness that was not fit for experi ments. 84Yet, the experiments carried out using smaller pieces of ice in England (for instance, on the levity of ice) led to vague and imprecise results that did not match the reports from northern eyewitnesses. 85The northern ice was puzzling, as for instance the strength of congealed sea water that had recently carried the Swedish king and the whole Swedish army over sea passages in Denmark.Icebridges of this magnificence had been described by Olaus Magnus, Boyle wrote, but they seemed so fan tastic that had Charles X Gustav not in fact marched over the ice in 1658, he would not have believed the bishop's words. 86Furthermore, how cred ible were the many reports of mountains and vast sheets of ice floating throughout the Arctic Sea? Eyewitness testimonies seemed credible, but it was difficult to fathom the size of "those stupendiously tall pieces of ice", or if the ice mountains were freefloating or grounded. 87Boyle chose to believe that the stories taken together, as told by Dutchmen and Eng lishmen (and one learned Frenchman), proved the accuracy of these natural ice manifestations "from being entertain'd with a Disbelief, which their strangeness would else tempt men to". 88Even for Boyle, then, im aginative faculties were needed to understand the facts of nature.In a repetitive manner his secondhand observations confirmed "the most stu pendious Example", "the vastness of single mountains of ice, the stupen diousness", "the stupendiousest piece (for height and depth) of single Ice", and so on.Language failed him, but the imaginative energy generated by the thought of icebergs, ice sheets and vanishing horizons was striking.Surprisingly, Cavendish was far more matter of fact when it came to ex plaining icebergs.In a short paragraph in Observations, she declared: What produces those great precipices and mountains of ice which are found in the sea, and other great waters?I answer: that snow, as also thick fogs and mists, which are nothing but rarified water, falling upon the ice, make its outside thicker; and many great shelves, and broken pieces of ice, joining together, produce such precipices and mountains as mentioned. 89 was as if she made the northern nature less foreign than Boyle did, or at least something less stupendous.In the same line of thought, the fic tional Arctic landscape that the heroine in Blazing World encountered was surprisingly welcoming: It was "covered all with snow" and the big bears walking on the ice, at first frightening, "showed her all civility and kind ness imaginable; for she being not able to go upon the ice, by reason of its slipperiness, they took her up in their rough arms, and carried her". 90n the following story of the heroine (who quickly becomes Empress of this new world) local knowledge about ice, snow and frost was presented. 91he Empress did not always agree, but she listened carefully and learned.

Conclusion
In her essay, The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate (2019), Nancy Campbell calls Robert Boyle a poet. 92She finds his long list of experiments on various shapes and sizes of ice both imaginative and expressive.In her reading, Boyle is also a careful observer of the changing colours of the Arctic ice, a sensitive listener to ice breaking and his rendering of the northern cold creatively unsystematic.This does not sound like the dry scientist aiming to establish objective standards and matters of facts on coldness, but Campbell might be right.As I have shown in this article, freezing phenomena were invented, created, and narrated in History of Cold with a curiosity that included tales of Arctic travellers and imaginary polar landscapes.Boyle knew that he was dependent on observations and experiences from the North for the conceptualization of the cold.If cred ible in providing Boyle with detailed information about freezing tem peratures, ice and snow, they were furthermore inscribed in a broader vision of England as a northern political power.Boyle stated that his scientific work attempted to reveal, not imagine, the qualities of natural phenomena.History of Cold however shows that the distinction was difficult to uphold.Did Boyle not after all, in Heuer's words, let "the Arctic, envi ronment and landscape […] take on agency and become actors in their own right"? 93n contrast to Boyle, Cavendish saw the relationship between reason and fancy in another way.As Susan James has rightly observed, "Caven dish stresses their interconnections.By presenting Observations and Blazing World as "two worlds" joined at their poles, she encourages the readers to move between philosophy and fiction". 94Every part of nature is perceptive according to Cavendish and she thus urges us to be humble, "since all Knowledg, by your Form, you gain/Then let not Pride above your Reason reign". 95My reading of Cavendish's intentions is that she accordingly presented her imaginary of the Arctic region with its ice and snow, as a gateway to an intellectual journey that could help the reader to better grasp the fundamental actions of nature.In line with her natural philoso phy, we should try to understand what the ice tells us.Indeed, the early modern European culture was "rich in icebound discourse" in which reality and the imaginary intermingled. 96The cold experiences by north bound travellers needed translation, as was fictionally demonstrated by François Rabelais in his widespread adventures of Pantagruel.In one of the stories Rabelais let his hero sail between icebergs and freezing winds that turned sounds and speech to ice.However, the eerie silence of the frozen words was broken when they were caught by Pantagruel and melt ed on the ship's deck.The sounds -"hin, hin, hin, hin, his, tick, tock, crack, brededin, brededac, frr, frrr, frrrr, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, bou, tracc, tracc, trr, trrr, trrrr, trrrrr, trrrrrr, on, on, on, on, on, ououououon" -were in fact the frozen fragments of confusions in the Arctic region. 97hether or not Pantagruel's recordings can teach us something about how to listen to the ice melting in own time is of course another question.But what we can learn from both Boyle's scientific endeavours and Cav endish's vision of nature is that there is no escaping the imaginary aspect of human reason, and we need both ice physics and ice humanities to meet the climate change challenges today.