The Evening post. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1888-1889, 1889-01-01
A TALK ON ICEBERGS.
THE OLD SALT SPINS SOME YARNS or
MID-oCEAN DANGERS.
a Monster Berg, sixty Miles wide. with
Bay IN its Ccnter-A cake That Was
Ten Thousand Toet From Top to BOT
tom,
Erom Ia NnN nnd Errrlss.

From the ltqU and Erprcs.
Out on one of the long docks, just be.
low Wall street ferry, heavily bearded,
rather well-to.do looking man stood look
ing up into the rigging Of u big Ameri.
clan ship. That he knew what he was
looking at was as evident as was the fact
that he wanted somebody to talk to, and
It only required a pleasant solutation to
get on speaking terms with him.
He was an old sailor, having, as he
said, "crawled in the hawsepipe and
come out at the cabin windows" which
being translated means that he had
worked himself up from before the mast
TO the masters berth. He was an old
time American master.
ut wasn't strange to see an American
flag at n lofty gafT in those days" said
he. I'VE had the finest and fastest
ships in the world, and when a lime
iuicer sailor for Englishman) saw cotton
canvas on a royal yard he knew that 1t
wasn't any use trying to catch that
bloody Yankee as they always called
ship from the States.
lie sNIFFED THE AIR.
Just then the old sailor shifted rather
eagerly in the rather damp, misty air.
The reportorial nose could only family
trace the Hunters Point aroma that
haunts the river, but the sailor had
caught a Whit of something else.
"Do YOU know" said he, 81 thought
smellcd an iceberg just then. AT sea in
high latitudes you can smell them miles
away, and many night have kept all
hands on deck shifting and peering around
on the watch for field ice or bergs. | tell
you it is no fun to have half dozen ice.
Dergs loaflng around when your ship is
logging nine or ten knots straight off the
reel and you are in such hurry TO
make passage that you don't want to
shorten sail"
The scent had awakened train of
memory, and, seating himself on one OF
the dock piles, he took n large-si2ed chew
of plug and settled himself TO talk about
field ice and bergs. At
81 was for nearly twenty years master
Of a deep sea ship" began the old she'll
back, "and have doubled both Cape
Horn and Cape Of Good Hope more times
than | have fingers twice over. That's
where you see ice. The bergs down
there are not so lofty or so beautiful as
those in Arctic regions, but they are
much more dangerous; first, because of
their number and extent. and again, be-
cause they have submarine formations
that are Just like ledge of rocks and
project sometimes half q mile or a mile
out from the base of the berg. You see,
with those fellows you might think you
were giving them all the berth they
oil -l;1 a1, In
one of their reefs.
A MONSTER ICEBERG.
'The biggest ice island ever heard
told of by sailors was seen drifting around
in about 80 s. and "a W., almost in tho
track of the English Liverpool boats
bound to Melbourne. 1t was in 1858 that
it was first sighted. and the same chunk
of ice was reported from that vicinity un-
til 1866, when it disappeared. 1t was
said to have been about $50 feet high,
sixty miles long and forty miles wide,
and was curved into very much the shape
of horseshoe The two arms of the
curves embraced bay forty miles across
and perfectly sheltered. A big English
emigrant ship, called the Guiding Star,
think, sighted the ice island, but whether
because of fog or carelessness, nobody
knows, sailed slap into the bay between
the arms of the island and was lost with
all hands. Pieces of her wreckage were
picked up near the island by steamer
bound for Australia.
1.-THE highest berg / ever heard of was
seen in the Southern ocean, where they
are not generally very lofty. | sailed
with man who declared that he had
seen this berg and that it was thousand
| feet high above the surface Of the water.
Now as there is always nine times as
much of berg below the water as there
| is above, that would make this fellow
| 5000 feet from the base under water to
the highest point above. That's pretty
big chunk of ice, considering that it is
over fifty times as high MS the Brooklyn
bridge. I'll bet it made q splash when
it fell That's where the danger is. In
warm latitudes the base melts away and
the first thing you know it falls over.
have heard of several ships that had big
chunks fall on their decks, one vessel
having her masts carried away and sew
eral of her crew killed.
Northern bergs are neither so large
nor so numerous as those seen in South
ern waters, but they are usually loftieI
and domes, and when the sun shines on
them they look like a lot of rainbowt
piled on top of each other. These fel.
lows are tall and draw u lot of water
have heard of them grounded onthe banks
of Newfoundland, where there was ovel
600 feet of water by the lead. They
have been reported in BalIin's Bay hard
aground in | 800 feet of water"