Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1912-05-02
UNCOMFORTABLE ICEBERGs.
Those That Threaten the Atlantic LII
ncrs Have Their Home Ports.
CBy Barrett T. Serviss In the New Yorl
Amnrnanl

American)
The terrible fate of the Titanic has call
ed attention, as 1t was never called be-
fore, to the awful menace of the icebergs
that sail the Atlantic main. the merci-
less, voiceless, spectral pirates of the sea.
Those that threaten the Atlantic liners
nearly all have their home ports-which
they never see after their launching
among the iiords of western Greenland.
The shipyards in which they are built are
the vast glacier streams of that strange.
frozen continent which Is buried from
shore to shore under a sheet of solid
Ice that must. in many places. attain "A
depth Of a mile or more. From the lofty
central plateau the glaciers flow toward
the sea on all sides, moving as they near
the coast, from fifty to a hundred feet
per day. Where they meet the sea they
are sometimes from ii thousand to two
thousand feet deep. Huge masses are
broken off by the action Of the waves. and
then they float away. towering up some
times to height of two hundred feet.
but with eight-ninths OF their mass sunk
en- beneath the water, The total tonnage
of the Greenland's icy fleet. annually
launched into the sea, has been calculat-
| ed at not less than a Thousand million
| tons.
Many single monsters belonging to this
fleet no doubt weigh a million tons. All
the battleships of the world combined
could not successfully contend with one
OF these white Dreadnoughts. which
CLEAN In the moonlight or loom through
fog with ghostly lights and spars OF
tottering Ice. Among all the perils of the
deep. none is so dreadful. so unconquer.
able so absolutely unapproachablc as a
great iceberg. If all its upper part could
be shot away the berg would simply rise
mysteriously out Of the depths and be
as formidable as before. Sometimes thou
sands of tons OF ice are discharged from
the sides of n melting berg, hut 1t only
shakes itself or rolls over. churning the
ocean to foam, and there IL towers again
more fearful. perhaps than at first.
The only way in which the peril of the
icebergs could he removed would be by
destroying the ice sheets of Greenland
As the bergs arc launched from the west
ern coast they are caught in the Iabora.
dor current, flowing southwark along tn,
American shore on the landward side OF
the gulf stream--whence the LaboradoI
current Is often called "the cold wall
and then they begin their career of men
ace and destruction by steering directly
| across the lanes followed by the ocear
liners on their shortest and quickest wa,
to northern Europe, Every mariner VIII,
enters that part of the ocean in tn,
season when the frozen fleet from Green
land sets out. knows we'll the kind OF dan
ger he has to face Those who are caution.
keep away from it-those who arc seek
ling n record" sometimes take the chance
and brave the danger.
Once launched there Is no way in which
man can destroy an iceberg only thu
slow action of the sunshine and the SET
water can do that. 1t cannot he blown
up. il cannot be broken 10 pieces, II can
not he stored away into another course
II cannot even be approached with safety
It's immense frozen mass chills the ali
and the water, and In this way the ther
mometer may reveal its presence, eve'
, q, hon It has concealed itself from sigh
behind the curtain OF mist and clou
created b, its own cold breath. Iceberg
often cruise in company. and a ship ma
lind itself suddenly involved In a Who'll