1.   Ten thousand years ago the ice began its retreat from Scotland.

2.   And stream beds may be ravaged by gouging in the spring, when the ice finally begins to melt and grind its way downstream.

3.   Around Christmas, the ice began to rise up from the bed of the Piscataquis River and spill onto the surrounding hayfields in a tumble of glassy aquamarine slabs.

4.   Stratospheric ice begins to form as clouds of crystals high over Antarctica in the dead of winter in June.

5.   The first ice began to fall Monday.

6.   The ice began to melt.

7.   The ice began to melt over the champagne and beer long before the Rangers arrived in their clubhouse.

8.   The ocean remained open much farther north than normal, and the ice began breaking up sooner than normal in the spring.

9.   But the ice has begun breaking up and moving downstream, according to the Interfax news agency.

10.   It usually continues well after ice begins to thaw in spring, and each year hundreds of fishermen are carried off on ice floes.