Engineering studies of freshwater ice began in the mid-nineteenth century in Eastern Europe. The flooding of Buda and Pest in 1838 led to studies of ice conditions on the River Danube during the winters of 1847/1848 and 1848/1849 by Arenstein (1849). Ashton (1986) and Barnes (1906) note that there were many nineteenth-century studies of ice formation and ice jams. Ireland (1792) mentions “ground ice” rising up from the bottom of the River Thames and there were other eighteenth-century references to it in France and Germany.