Kingsbury County independent. (DeSmet, Kingsbury County, S.D.) 1894-1929, 1906-10-19
ENORMOUS WEIGHT OF
GREENLAND ICEBERGS
Appalling Masses Of Ice Are a
Menace to Ocean Navi-
cation.
HOW THEY ARE FORMED
Being No Chance for Snow to Melt, 1t
Gradually Congeals Till Topping
from Own Bulk 1t Glides
Into the Sea.
From the New York Herald.

From the New York Herald.
Every spring the north Atlantic ocean
witnesses a strange wierd sight. Hun
.dreds of huge icebergs, liberated from the
long winters imprisonment in the frozen
north, start on their journey southwark.
Silent the fleet moves day after day, night
after night, out into the broad ocean, car
ried by the irresistible arctic currents even
against adverse winds. Southwark, ever
southwark they go, down the silent coast
of Labrador, skirting the banks OF New
foundland and into the path of the ocean
liners, or else they drift into the CUR
stream and are carried back north again
toward the coast of Ireland.
Sometimes they move on against both
wind and ocean current, because these
are huge craft, with their immense hulls
sinking 1000 feet or more to some under
current of the ocean which drives them
along counter to the shallow upper stream
of water. 1t is these big fellows of the
iceberg community that are such a
menace to navigation.
The smaller ones melt away before they
reach the lanes of ocean travel. But these
big monsters Withstand the ever-intensify-
ing heat of the sun and the beating OF
wind and wave until they have passed Tar
south of the latitude of New York. Some
of them have been known to wander as
far as the Azores islands and even farther
to the latitude Of Cape Hatteras, N. Z.
River of Solid Ice.
Whence come these ponderous masses of
ice? AT first one might think that they
were large pieces of the frozen Arctic,
which is enormously imagined to be a
solid ocean of ice. AS a matter Of fact
the Arctic ocean is never frozen over to a
depth of more than six or eight feet, while
a ~good-sized iceberg will easily measure
1000 to 1000 feet in thickness.
To be sure, the ocean ice is crushed and
broken by the fierce polar gales and the
Ice slabs are piled up in heaps which often
reach respectable dimensions. But these
Ice piles are properly called "foebergs,"
not icebergs. A genuine iceberg is very
different in appearance from a foeberg
and can boast of a much prouder lineage.
1t is not of salt water origin but is pure
fresh water ice. Instead of being the prod
uce of a single polar winter 1t can point
pack hundreds of years TO it's birth at the
top of a lofty mountain.
Those of us who chance to remember our
physical geography lessons need not be
told that icebergs are produced by glaciers
and that in tracing the history of an ice
berg one must first describe these wonder
full rivers of solid ice which flow down the
mountain side, relieving the excessive bur-
dens of snow.
How Iceberg Is Formed.
Up in the mountains of Greenland there
Is little chance for snow to melt and flow
off as it does in these regions. Instead
1t is blown down or slides in avalanches
off the highest peaks into a pocket or an
upper valley of the mountain. Here 1T
gradually collects, as in a reservoir, to a
depth of hundreds and even thousands of
feet and the weight o fthe snow is so great
that it is pressed into a mass of solid ice
not white ice, full of air bubbles as we
commonly see ii, but ice that has been
squeezed until it is blue, actually an indi-
go blue, because every particle of air is
forced out of it.
But the snow can not go on collecting
in this manner forever. or it would event
ually build up a mountain of infinite
height. In time the pressure will be suf-
ficient to force an arm of ice down through
a break in the walls of the reservoir. The
arm grows larger and larger as the reser-
voir grows deeper. Slowly, very slowly,
1t moves, not more than a few inches each
day, until ultimately it reaches the sea,
maybe fifty or more miles away
Flows Like a Liquid.
In it's progress to the sea it is obliged to
follow the course of it's channel, flowing
down the valley, around sharp bends and
down steep inclines, like a river Of water.
In some places where the bed drops sud
denly we have a glacier waterfall or cas-
cade where the glacier opens or. as some
one has put it, breaks its back" over the
precipice. But the yawning crevasse is
soon closed and the edges are frozen to-
gether. Moderate depressions and curves
in the course are taken without any break
in the glacier, the ice literally flowing like
a stream of water, and like a river it
flows faster at the center than along the
banks and in some places is damned up
and curls over the obstruction like water
flowing over a dam.
For many years scientists were at a loss
to account for the strange phenomenon of
a rigid substance Ike ice flowing as a
liquid. Three theories have been advanced
in explanation, but the one generally ac-
cepted is that the ice actually melts where
1t is under the greatest pressure, at urves
after which it freezes again as soon as it is
relieved of the pressure. This action is
called "regel@ ton"
Roc~ No Earrier.
A favor,.e experiment. in illustration Of
the phenomenon of regulation IS to lay an
icicle or a blocH CT ice en- a pair of sup
ports and suspend a weight from the Ice
by means of an :ron wire. The w re, owing
TO the pressure It exert5 on the ice, will
gradually melt rs way INTO the block, but
as fast as it does so the ice freezes to-
gether again above II, so that ultimate
ly the wire cuts entirely through the leo
and yet leaves a solid block behind it.
1t is difficult TO gain an adequate con-
ception Of the enormous pressure eXerted
by a glacier. Forced ahead by the weight
of millions of tons of ice and snow, II
grinds it's way through solid rock, picking
up huge powders in its course and with
them crushing and tearing whatever i'm
pedes t. A glacier is one of the most
powerful forces we have on this planet
and the scars 1t leaves endure for ages.
We can still see on the rocks CT Central
park, New York, unmistakable evidences
of a glacier which covered this city couL-
less age ag~o-namely, the smooth, polished
rocks worn by the passage of the ice and
these peculiar parallel scratches made ny
rocks imbedded in the glacier. This hap
pened in the Ice age, when all this part os
the country was IN a condition similar TO
that of Greenland.
Glaciers on the Equator.
However. glaciers are not confined TO
cold regions. The ones we are most fa-
m.liar with are In Switzerland. But these.
though beautiful In their origin. end ie-
ANONYMOUSLY In a stream of muddy water.
We have some IN the Rockies on noun
tains that ore snow covered the Year
round. There are sixty-five small ores IN
the Sierra Navadas OF southern California.