The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-09-02

months in the year, while the berg
laden current flows past them on its
southerly coast. The seal hunter or
fisher of this region can tell the char
acter of floating ice or an ice pack
merely at glance. When searching
for seal on the ice fields in winter, if
he becomes thirsty, he looks for ice
having a blush or grayish tint-not
the white or transparent variety He
knocks off a chunk of the darker hue
and tests it with his tongue. But the
field may consist of pack of pan or
foe ice which, though of dazzling
clearness and wilderness, is unfit to
quench the thirst, owing to it's salt.
So it is that much suffering is endur-
ed by these fur hunters, unless they
chance upon a fragment of a berg
which may have gone to pieces and
been wedged in the pack.
Usually the iceberg is of such large
proportions that it can be distinguish
ed from the foe and pan ice, but oc-
casionally a berg splits apart because
the superstructure becomes too great
for that supporting it, Again, a storm
may send two crashing against each
other, knocking pieces off them, per
haps weakening them so that they 90
into fragments. The debris of large |
berg may cover a square mile, but,
even mingled with other ice, the eve I
of the skilled observer can usually de-
tect it by its darker color But there
is the sure test of the tongue, for gla-
cial ice is almost invariably fresh"
but a slight percentage of
saline matter in it's composition. Still
another method in its discovery is to
take a chunk and try to break it. at
the same time putting a piece of pack !
ice to the same test. A blow which I
the pack ice may only knock
little powder from the surface of
ne other. During the hundreds, per- A.
laps thousands, of years it has exist /
ed, its particles have been so con- lP
SANITY subject to pressure from the "a
glacial movement that the ice has So llt
idified to wonderful degree. 1t not Is
'nly resists the sharp edge of the cut j
ing tool, but will remain a much S
'reater length of time without melting y
nan any other variety found in the o
cean. This accounts for the dimen- ?
ions OF some of the bergs which have S
Ioated for year or more before thew
each the Grand Banks. Although the o
emperature rises rapidly as they go a
outward from these shoals, it is L
nown that some have gone 200 miles "
arther south before they have melted
II separated into fragments.
If an iceberg moving down with the =
labrador current is swayed by an
astern storm or eddy too near shore.
wing to its "draught," as the sailors !,
would say, it is liable to ground. Thus r
n opportunity to study the changes h
Which occur is given. It has been dis h
oyered that, while the summer tenn.
of Newfoundland is high
nough to reduce the surface consid.
rably by melting, it goes to pieces q
much more rapidly by the weakening
Il the lower portions. The action of
he waves and tides tends to under.
nine 1t, so to speak, holes appear at =
ne water line, piece of the upper c
PORTION caves in" then another and =
mother. until the berg disappears in
remarkably short time considering d
is dimensions. There have been in.
'tances where parts of these stranded
'ergs have remained in sight through.
'ut the summer, and were preserved
~ the winter temperature until the -
leXt year, but usually after striking