Tensas gazette., 1909-10-08
PERIL OF THE ICEBERG.
Government Tries to Keep Track OF
These Ghostly Monsters of the Sea.

These Ghostly Monsters Of the Sea.
The fear of icebergs has been partly
removed in recent years by wireless
telegraphy, but their presence on the
seas is still menacing.
Nearly all the other dangers of
ocean navigation have been overcome
by the modern palatial steamers that
ply between America and Europe.
Ships carry wireless telegraph instru-
ments and submarine sounding-bells,
so that even in fogs captains can tell
when another ship is in the neighbor-
hood and thus avoid collisions. But
an iceberg is different. 1t carries no
wireless apparatus and makes no re-
sponse to submarine bells and tele-
phone signals. White and ghostEke
1t looms up suddenly out of the dark
ness or fog and crashes down upon
the ill-fated ship that crosses it's path.
By wireless, ships finding icebergs
make reports. and in this way track is
kept of the great floating dangers.
The government every summer and
fall makes out an iceberg chart. When
some ship reports an iceberg in GER
tain latitude and longitude little red
DOT is placed on the iceberg chart. 1t
is drifting in southerly direction,
and allowances are made for so many
miles of advance every twenty-four
hours. So the red dot is moved slowly
forward. But adverse winds, seas and
currents may change the course of
the berg, and this sort of reckoning
may prove all wrong.
Then another ship reports the same
or another iceberg in different place.
More red dots appear on the chart,
and as the season advances the danger
points increase. These charts are
issued as warnings to mariners.
But even with all of these efforts to
plot out the floating bergs, the danger
of colliding with one is always pres
ent. An adverse wind may have
driven one far out of its course, or
big one has broken in two and the
halves have fioated wide apart The
icebergs are dangerous distractions
to navigation on clear, dark nights as
we'll as in times of fog. They carry
no lights. and they cannot be detected
in the dark until close upon a ship.
Experienced sea captains possess
certain instinct for detecting the pres
ence of icebergs. Some captains claim
that they can smell an iceberg miles
away. Something in the atmosphere
warns them of the danger, and they
double the watch and reduce speed
until out of the danger zone. Then
again, when near an iceberg the air
grows suddenly cold and chilly, and
sometimes there is a drop of several
degrees in the temperature.
On the other hand, many instances
are on record Of icebergs crashing out
of the dark without any warning and
wrecking ships. Marvellous escapes
and disastrous wrecks have thus been
recorded. 4
The ocean liner has little more
chance of escape in collision with an
iceberg than the smallest sailing craft.
The rotten ice, towering hundreds Of
feet above the water level, is ready to
fall in great masses the moment
slight shock is given to its base or
sides. Many unaccounted disappear
ances of ships and steamers are at
tributed to tragic collisions with ice
bergs, ships and all on board going to
the bottom without SO much as a rem
nant left to tell the tale. To this
cause mariners and marine insurance
attribute the mysterious
of the City of Boston from
the face of the ocean with all its pas
engers.-Harper's Weekly.