New Britain herald., 1914-07-11
]. E. BEALE TELLS
 ABOUT |CEBERCS
Interesting Talk Given Before Hart
 ford Organization.

J. E. Beale of this city gave the second talk in a series of reminis- cences of the sea before the Laymen's s association of Christ church, Hart ford, this week, his subject being: ''The Iceberg His talk in part was as follows:
 Since the laundering of the great ocean steamship Titanic which struck one of these wandering Polar ice continents on her maiden voyage to this country some two years ago, and by which more than 1,600 human beings went to 8 sudden and untimely ocean grave, the iceberg has come into the public mind as a terrible menace to the seafarer and his ship. Seen, however, under happier and safer conditions, on a clear day or bright moonlight night. in all it's indescrib- able complex splendor, at a safe dis Ntance, in all it's majestic greatness, 1t Us sight never to be forgotten.
 Cause of the Iceberg.
 These icebergs are parts of the Greenland and other Arctic glaciers, practically parts of frozen rivers, sections of ice and snow formed in the valleys and depressions between the mountains, where, for everlast- ing ages the winter snows are turned to ice by the summer suns, and these ice walls continuously formed back in the interior, are driven down to the sea by the continuous pressure be- hind, where, reaching the sea they break, off and are brought by the north winds and strong currents down to the Atlantic, where. meeting the Ic eli yxyor oy waters of the Gulf Stream, they founder and melt from sight.
 There is said to be an attraction, a magnetism about these great ice m cnsters that draws vessels toward them. On several occasions while on the upper coast of Labrador, where the icebergs are quite numerous in carly summer, when the weather has been perfectly calm, so that our ves- se1 had no headway, we have been compelled to take to our boats and row to safe distance till the berg drifted by. This precaution was not 50 much from the fear of a scraping acquaintance with the monster, but m ore to escape the possibility of the herg's laundering and ourselves and cur vessels being crushed out of existence.
 Their Dissolution.
 As they come into currents of warmer air and water they become porous, and rot, creating great Assures and cracks in them. A portion of one of these monsters will suddenly be- come detached from the top, perhaps when it will come laundering, crash l ing and roaring down, breaking and l SC nding great sections, thousands of tens in it's descent until it strikes the sea, throwing up volumes of water as high as itself and sufficient to swamp an ordinary ship should she be near enough.
 Occasionally they will break off and become separated beneath the surface, down hundreds of feet toward their base, for when it is known that there are eight parts be- and that many of them are from two to four hundred feet high, some idea of their immensity may be formed.
 I have witnessed one of these sup- marine upheavals when the whole mass that was. above the surface came toppling, turning, laundering, crashing down, sending the foam ana spray hundreds of feet into the air, great sections of what was beneath the water rising up as it was liber- ated, meeting other huge masses as they fell, only to smash them into hundreds of lesser pieces, the scene presented giving the impression that some tremendous upheaval of the oceans volcanoes had broken loose, sending up millions of tons of ice and water in place of the fiery lava. So great is the agitation of the sea at such a time and so pronounced the swell caused by this eruption that it is felt for miles away, causing a ship to roll almost rails under. Thus I have seen the entire disintegration of one of these great icebergs, the remains strewing the sea for miles with broken ice.
 Description of the Berg.
 But to see one of these floating white monsters in all it's glistenins glory it should be viewed on a clear moonlit night It's chasms and valleys are thrown into the deepest shade and the myriad minarets, steeples and pinnacles. like those crowning some gold finished mosque, glittering ev- cry color of the rainbow, from the deepest blue in the shade to a dag zling effulgence of color, all bathed 1 and flooded in the fascinating shim- mer of a gloriously full and resplen- dent moon, that never seems to | shine with such brilliancy as it does at sea.
 The beauty and surpassing grand | eur, the sublimity of the scene is wholly beyond my feeble power to | describe. It is overlapping in the l majesty of it's immensity.
 Weather conditions are not always fayorab ble to see them at their best for the reason that they nearly always cre- ate fog in their immediate vicinity, the contact of this enormous mass of ice cooling and condensing the air