On Monday, January 23rd, we passed close to two large and beautiful bergs, full of cracks and chasms, with a number of caves of the deepest blue colour. This appearance of blue in cavities surrounded by colourless ice is a phenomenon for which physicists have not yet offered a satisfactory explanation.
There is something about these huge bergs, bucking and swaying in the long heavy swell, which always attracts. One wonders at their age and where they have come from. It is a pity that there is no way of marking them. Worsley, ever inventive, and never at a loss for a suggestion, proposes firing into them bombs filled with permanganate of potash, or, better still, to have rifles firing small projectiles, by which one could mark the date. “Why not?” says he.
There is much difference of opinion regarding the length of life of these bergs, some saying two or three years, whilst others suggest that they last forty or more. Much undoubtedly depends upon their movements. A grounded berg is likely to exist for a long time, and I have seen many, marked by the rise and fall of tide and washed by the action of the sea, which had obviously endured for many years. Those which do not go aground drift about for varying periods till carried eventually to the north; they meet their fate amongst warm currents, which leave not a vestige of their original selves. A berg floats with about seven-eighths of its bulk below water, and is consequently more susceptible to deep than to surface currents. I have often seen them moving through pack at a rate of two or three miles an hour, brushing aside the lighter ice in their undeviating progress. In open water, too, I have seen them moving up against strong winds at a similar speed.
During our boat journey from the breaking-up pack on the Endurance expedition we nearly came to grief from this cause, a large berg of several hundred yards in length almost jamming us against a line of floe ice, and requiring all our efforts to pull free.
Photo: Wilkins
THE WESTERN END OF ZAVODOVSKI ISLAND, SHOWING GROUNDED ICEBERGS
