The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-06-20

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Graphic Description of the Ice Fields OF
Newfoundland.
A correspondent of the New York Euening
Post furnishes description of the wonderful
;ce-ields, the scenery and perils OF which are
graphically delineated:
ST.. JOHNS, Newfoundland, May 20.
Since early in January enormous fields of
ice, sometimes 200 miles in breath, have been
passing these shores in almost continuous
stream. The thickness of this 6eld-ice is from
twenty to thirty feet. The distance between
Bafin's Bay, where the ice-felds are formed,
and the waters of the Gulf Stream, where the
masses are dissolved, is from 1,5O0 to 1000
miles. It may be affirmed without any exag-
geration, that river of ice, varying from 5o to
200 miles in breadth, and 1000 miles in length
has been for three months. pouring incessantly
its contents into the tepid waters OF the Gulf
Stream. The winter has been fearfully severe,
and the quantity and thickness of the ice un-
precedented. The consequences to our seal
fishery have been ruinous. During nearly the
whole of March and part of April northeast
winds prevailed, by which this huge stream of
ice was DETECTED and pressed upon our shores
in q close 'pack," filling every bay, harbor and
inlet with masses of ice and completely block
aiding the whole coast, with the exception of
few intervals, when the west wind loosened the
"pack" and drove it out to sea- The enormous
quantity of ice which is carried in this way
from the polar regions to warmer temperatures
no arithmetic could calculate. Some slight
idea of its extent may be formed from the case
A. oluta chi WI
been abandoned by reason of its getting en-
tangled in vast field of ice, in Melvilles
Straits, was found afterwards in Bafin's Bay,
having been carried one thousand miles from
its former position. A similar occurrence car
ried Captain De Haven, of the United States
Navy, and Captain McClintock, of the British
Navy, in mass of frozen sea-water, an equal
distance south of their position.
~ SCENERY OF THE ICE-F1ELDs.
An ice-covered ocean, such as that on which
we have been so long gazing this year, is gen.
orally grim and ghostly sight; but at times,
when the stately bergs come along in troops,
their domes, spires and turrets glittering with
dazzling whiteness in the sunbeams, and when
the long swell of the Atlantic rends the ice
field into foes, and hurls them against each
other in wild warfare, pihng the shattered frag-
ments one upon another, and when the icebergs
sail in and take part in the fray, then the scene
is..grand and awful. Fancy two ice-foes, each
million tons in weight under the influence of
opposite rotatory motions, rushing together in
the death grapple The crash is awful, but
the struggle is only momentary. The weaker
yields, and is crushed beneath the waves, while
the shattered fragments of the victor are piled
on the back of its PROSTATE foe to the height of
forty or fifty feet; or it may be huge berg,
half mile in circumference, smites with its
lofty forehead small field of ice, and with
roar like the discharge of park of artillery
the foe is rent into wide assures and split into
q thousand fragments, which strew the ocean
far and wide. Think of some unhappy ship
caught in such a drifting pack, where at any
moment the meeting foes may grind her into
atoms Night comes down, and the binding
snow-drift, hurled on the wings of fierce
nor'easter, darkens the air. The spray beats
over the deck, freezing as it falls, and covers
everything with ice. No situation more trying
to human courage and endurance can be imag
iaed Huge blocks of ice are hurled as from
a. catapult against the ship making the masts
culver as if about to fall, and straining every
Joint till the vessel groans again. Should she
come between two meeting bergs, or foe and
berg, instant destruction follows for iron and
timber could no more resist the pressure than
awine-glass the effect of cannon-ball. The
resounding blows of the ice-bergs, the roar of
the storm overhead, the straining of the ships
timbers-all these make up scene enough to
appal the stoutest heart.
These are the dangers amid which our hardy
sealers pursue their perilous calling. When
the storm abates and the morning dawns
ghastly scene presents ITSELF The Ice is piled
In "hummocks" twenty or thirty feet high, un-
der the force of the tremendous conclusion |;
ndges and furrows of ice, with dark lines of
water between, everywhere meet the eye; the
spray is breaking in foam against the crystal
walls of the ice-bergs, and the waves are dash
ing through their emerald caves. The poor
sailor breathes hurried thanksgiving for de-
iverance from an awful death.
FORMATION OF ICE-FIELDs AND BERGs.
Whence come these immense ice-fclds that
glide past our coast7 They are fragments of
the ice formed during winter on the surface of
the sea in Davis's and Baffin's Bay. There the
sea, even in deep water, becomes frozen at the
surface. Fresh water congeals at a tempera-
ture of 80 degs. of Fahrenheit, but sea-water
must be reduced to 81 degs. before it deposits
its salt and begins to freeze. When formed, it
floats like the ice of fresh water and nearly
with the same buoyancy. 1t may, indeed, be
doubted whether salt water ice be really any
thing else than fresh, with portion Of con-
centrated brine entangled in its pores. Snow
falling and floating on water of % degs. does
not, of course, melt, so that the Polar seas be-
come coated with a stratum of perfectly fresh
ice over very extensive tracts. AS the sun
comes north the ice in these Polar seas break
up and is driven southwark on the Arctic cur
sent past our shores. The icebergs, detached
from Dhe enormous masses of ice that the
Greenland glaciers project in the fords along
the coast, are also carried away Oh the same
current. These bergs are all of land formation.
The glens and valleys of Greenland are filled
up with solid ice, which has been accumuating
for uncounted ages; and from these sources the
floating bergs are supplied. Pressed forward