The news and herald. (Winnsboro, S.C.) 1877-1900, 1880-07-06
Ice III tho Track of Ships.

Ice and icebergs appeared on the banks
Of Newfoundland earlier this season than
usual. They are most commonly met in
the early part of the summer, after the ces-
sation of northcrly gales, which drive them
from their location in the latter part of
March nr April. The iccbcrgs come chiefly
from Greenland, being formed by rivulcts,
etc. The vast ic c-fieltls seen upon the banks
arc brought there by the currents of the sea
and the wind. They come mostly from the
coast Of Labrador, and are parts of the
fields which are formed during the long
winter in the great bays and inlcts of the
Labrador coast. Iccbcrgs are continually
changing their line of floating owing in
part to the breaking off Of pieces of the up-
per mass and the melting away of the SUBJ
merged portion. Their motion is always
slow, and accidents can rarely happen from
them to prudent mariners At this season
of the year they are brought down by the
northern winds. They float along the
banks of Newfoundland, and finally, strik-
ing the warmer waters Of the Gulf Stream,
soon disappear. The movement of field
of ice is accompanied by much crashing,
and is often obscurcd by dense fog,
through which rise the tops of the bcrgs.
On two occasions during tho Arctic cruise
of the Juniata in the Polish Search Expe-
ditlon, that vessel barely escaped dcstruc-
tion by iccbcrgs. One of these was in the
middle of July, 1873. During dense fog
ut midday, off Cape Farewell, Greenland,
an immense berg was suddenly seen to loom
up out Of the fog not moro than a ships
length directly ahead. Fortunately the
vessel was running at slow speed and her
course was quickly changed, and she cleared
the ice mountain by about one hundred feet.
On another occasion, off Fiskernacs, in a
dense fog, another very large berg was seen
a little on the port bow, and ledge of rocks
on the starboard bow, not more than 600
feet distant. The engines were stoppcd
and reversed, ,and the vessel escaped tcstruc-
ton by only fow feet. An officer of one
OF the vessels which encountered the great
ice fields and bcrgs on the Banks, and whose
vessel was closed in for several hours, gave
the following statement of his observations
TO reporter: '"To the windward of us,
forming Ice shore, we saw vast plain of
undulating ice, in no wise different from
that which VIC sometimes sec in winter on
the North River when the Hudson is break
Ing up, except IN its extent. There was
the same cracking and grinding and splash
Ing, but the indefinite extent multiplied the
sounds to a tremendous din, and with it
came strange nndcrtone accompaniment.
The hummocks piled themselves up on the
edge of the 1iocs in set of rugged walls
several feet in height. A great number of
bcrgs, of shapes the most simple and most
complicated, of colors blue, white and
cartl-staincd, were entanglcd in this great
floating field Of ice. They ranged from 80
to 100 feet in height, and were of various
lengths. We could not help being i'm
pressed by the majesty of these ice noun
tains With bcrgs, foes and hummock
ridges the great mass looked like an ice
bound coast, on which we were soon firmly
fixed. These ice mountains frequently
travelled in opposite directions from the