Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-17

ampled in the abundance OF these E-1s-Fsss3as
crystal islands, and the early period
in the season at which they showed
themselves in such numbers. To-
ward the end of January their advance guard was
sighted off the Newfoundland coast and every
week since then they have been larger and pen
tier. During March and April these ramparts
adrift were constant menace to the big liners
which, trying to make fast passages, had to risk
more chances than mere freighters, that more
than greyhound came within an ace of meet
ing her end thereby. AS early as March 20, 1905,
the steamship Savoie, arriving at New York,
reported sighting ice-field two hundred miles
long floating directly in the path of incoming steam
boats.
AS an instance of the magnitude of this iceberg
peril in recent years there may be mentioned the
case of the Kaiser Wilhelm H., which on Sunday,
April 1905, counted thirty,two large bergs within
the range of vision. The Teutonic the next day
sighted thirty-nine and the Carona two days later
passed forty-six. The Toronto in the same week
counted seventy-two between sunrise and sunset;
the Majestic saw ffty-fve about the time;
the ChemnitZ lodged among eighty more of
them; and the Minneapolis brought report of
sixty-three.
All these lev masses which infest the North
Atlantic steamer track have their origin in the
frigid Greenland ordS where mighty glaciers, real
solid Niagaras are formed from the vast ice-cap
which covers that remote Arctic region and move
resistessfy to the sea, where each summer they
"calve" give off enormous fragments which,
dividing and subdividing again and again. become
the bergs so much dreaded by the springtme voy-
ager. These northern monarchs borne down
in stately procession from the dreaded Bafin Bay
on the Labrador current winch sweeps past Cne
eastern coast of Newfoundland, across the Grand
Banks and into the Gulf Stream, where they grad
ually disappear under the influence of the increas-
ingly powerful rays of more vertical sun and the
higher temperature of the surface water.
Escaped On an Ice Raft
THE most extraordinary narrative in the annals
of absolutely authentic adventure is that of the
escape of the crew of the exploring steamer Poarls,
who on October IS, 1872, went adrlft on mass OF
ice twenty-seven persons in all, in northern Green
land waters, and after being one hundred and
ninety-five days this strange raft were picked
up safe and unframed, by the Newfoundland seal
ing steamer Tigress, April &C., 1873, after having
drifted southwark eighteen hundred miles and es-
capped countless and almost incredible dangers.
During their long Journey down past Labrador
and Newfoundland, the bergs do not remain of the
same shape when broken off the parent glacier
sundered again by internal fractures grounding
reefs, but frequently turn somersault to
accommodate themselves to the changed center of
gravity of the berg. Admiral Markham, in his
ploring cruise in Melville Bay counted between
seven hundred and eight hundred bergs all under
way for SUMMER chimes and some of them exceed
ingly large One of them he estimates to have
been six hundred feet high and eighteen hundred
long. The tallest berg ever reported about the
liner track was one observed by the steamship
Mneola in June, 1890, which hundred
feet from water-lin to summit while the Hahs
in MAY, 1902 sighted one which six hun
dred feet high. Bergs three to four hundred
feet high and thousand to fifteen hundred
feet long are by uncommon along the
Newfoundland coast but they usually ground on
the Grand Banks, are bufeted by storms, and split
themselves into many lesser fragments.
These bergs not dangerous in clear
weather. because they easily be made "
out when long distances away, and can -