The Cape Girardeau Democrat. (Cape Girardeau, Mo.) 1876-1909, 1894-11-17
ODD FACTS ABOUT tcseeRes.
Dazzling Possibilities of Utilizing q BERG
aa a HaHhor Roaoxf 80

ODD FACTS ABOUT icEBERGS
Dazzling Possibilities of Utilizing a Berl
as a Harbor Resort.
There would be a large profit in ice
bergs if some one would devise a way
of bringing them into port. They fire..
quently float in the ocean within a few
days steaming of New York, and any
man who finds an iceberg can have it.
The ice in a good-sized berg at the
market rate would be worth many
thousands of dollars. During the heat
ed spell" the enterprising tug master
who would tow one in could anchor it
off Sandy Hook and do a big business
taking people down there to get cool.
He could sell beer and other refresh
ments at little expense, no refrigerat-
ors being necessary, and in order to
keep the food to run his restaurant
need only dig out a cave in the berg,
where beef and fish could be kept IN a
frozen condition. 1t would be a pleas
r on a hot day in the city to run
down to the berg and sit on n of the
top crags smoking a pipe and feeling
nice and cool.
Stout people and others who get ex-
ira hot could take a plunge into the
icy pool which could be dug out in the
center of the berg, and from this a
large profit could be derived, while ice
cream cotld be made by digging a hole
in the ground and stirring up the
cream and eggs with a stick. The pro-
prietor of this resort would nave to
pay no taxes, and he would not be
at the mercy of the railroads. He could
yarn anybody off except those paying
for admission, and he could erect a
small hotel on the berg where extra
blankets could be provided in the
rooms and the heat turned on if neces-
sary.
Stuffed polar bears distributed at
picturesque points would add to the
realism of the situation, and visitors
would be assured of feeling cool, no
matter how the wind blew. At the
close of the season the enterprising
proprietor need only tow it into port
and cut it up into blocks for usale DUR
ing the winter. AS it would be
brought in as fiotsam and jetsam of
the sea, the payment of duties at the
customhouse could thus be escaped, for
there is a tariff on ice which protects
us from the pauper ice of Europe.
An iceburg melts very slowly. When
in crossing the Atlantic you see a berg
you may know that it has been hoated
in the sun and rain thousands of miles
to that place, and has been, perhaps,
knocking about for the better part of
a year without sensible diminution.
Many people think that icebergs are
accumulations of sea ice from the polar
region, and foolishly imagine, when
they see a berg that the ice at the pole
must be several thousand feet thick.
AS a matter of fact it is impossible for
ice on the surface of any sheet of water
to freeze to a depth of twenty feet, a
ice itself acts as a shield or protection
from the cold. Many icebergs, how
ever, are thousands of feet in diameter.
This is because they are the broken
off ends of glaciers, which freeze from
the top and bottom and around the
sides.
The glacier, coming down to the sea
with its slow but sure progression,
sticks its nose under the sea, and the
upward pressure of the water finally
breaks off the md. Then the berg
floats down from the polar region when
spring loosens the ices grasp upon the
north, and it finally gets into the At
lantic to astonish New Workers on
their way to Europe. Less than one
eighth of an iceberg is above the wa
ter, and the submerged part often pro-
jects out a long distance. For this rea-
son steamers give them wide berth.
Yet many vessels running into an
iceberg in the fog have been damaged
only above the water-line, as was the
case with the Mirada of the Cook arctic
expedition. Icebergs chill the air for
a long distance in their immediate
neighborhood, and their presence at
sea is often heralded by the thermome-
ter before they are seen on the horizon.
For this reason the bringing of an
iceberg into this port in hot weather
would be a general blessing. 1t would
probably destroy the bathing at Man
haitian Beach and some of the agents
of steamship lines might 'object. The
berg, however, might be lighted at
night so that no ship would run into
it. Indeed, the proposition has been
more than once made that l%ong-burn-
ing lights be put upon the icebergs
floating in the tracks of ocean steam
ers, so as to lessen the chances of a col
lision. Hundreds of these bergs are
aflost at one time in the Atlantic, many
of them in large groups. One of them
would furnish ice enough to supply a
large city for a whole year.
The number of icebergs in the path
of ocean steamers during the past year
has been very large. AS soon as
these bergs have been sighted their
location has been noted down and re-
ported to the photographic Office. In
the charts issued periodically by the
photographic Office these bergs have
been indicated, so hat mariners know
in advance about where they are to be
encountered. The bergs drift very
sometimes not more than a
mile a day.
They grow smaller and smaller as
they near the equator, but in more
than one case they have formed a ref
uge for ship-wrecked crews, who trust, |