The Ocean and Its Wonders

by R. M. Ballantyne

“So far from falling into the sea, broken by its weight from the parent glacier, it rises from the sea. The process is at once gradual and comparatively quiet. The idea of icebergs being discharged, so universal among systematic writers, and so recently admitted by myself, seems to me at variance with the regulated and progressive action of nature. Developed by such a process, the thousands of bergs which throng these seas should keep the air and water in perpetual commotion—one fearful succession of explosive detonations and propagated waves. But it is only the lesser masses falling into deep waters which could justify the popular opinion. The enormous masses of the Great Glacier (of Greenland) are propelled step by step, and year by year, until, reaching water capable of supporting them, they are floated off, to be lost in the temperatures of other regions...

“The height of the ice-wall at the nearest point was about three hundred feet, measured from the water’s edge; and the unbroken right line of its diminishing perspective showed that this might be regarded as its constant measurement. It seemed, in fact, a great icy table-land, abutting with a clean precipice against the sea. This is, indeed, characteristic of all those arctic glaciers which issue from central reservoirs, or mers de glace, upon the fords or bays, and is strikingly in contrast with the dependent or hanging glacier of the ravines.”

Elsewhere the same writer speaks of this glacier as a line of cliff, rising in a solid glassy wall to a height of three hundred feet above the water-level, and with an unfathomable depth below it; and its curved face, sixty miles in length, from Cape Agassiz to Cape Forbes, vanished into unknown space at not more than a single day’s rail-road travel from the pole. The interior with which it communicated, and from which it issued, was an unsurveyed mer de glace, or sea of ice, of apparently boundless dimensions; and from one part of this great cliff he saw long lines of huge bergs floating slowly away.

Here, we think, is ice enough and of sufficient dimensions to account for the largest bergs that were ever beheld.

It will be at once seen, then, that icebergs, though found floating in the sea, are not necessarily of the sea. They are composed entirely of fresh water, and arctic ships can at any time procure a plentiful supply of good soft drinkable water from the pools that are formed in the hollows of the bergs.

The risk of approaching icebergs in the arctic regions is not so great as when they are found floating further south; because when in their native regions they are comparatively tough, whereas on their southern journeys they become more or less disintegrated—in fact, the blow of an axe is sometimes sufficient to cause a rent, which in its turn will induce other rents and failings asunder, so that the whole mass runs the risk of being entirely broken up. Hence the danger of ships, in certain circumstances, venturing to anchor to them. Nevertheless this is a common practice—sometimes a necessity—among discovery ships and whalers. It is a convenient practice too; for many a vessel has been saved from absolute destruction by getting under the lee of a good sound iceberg, where she has lain as safely, for the time being, as if in a harbour.

When Captain McClure was endeavouring to make the north-west passage in 1851, he was saved, from what appeared to be at least very probable destruction, by a small iceberg. On the 17th of September he writes:

“There were several heavy floes in the vicinity. One, full six miles in length, passed at the rate of two knots, crushing everything that impeded its progress, and grazed our starboard-bow. Fortunately there was but young ice upon the opposite side, which yielded to the pressure; had it otherwise occurred, the vessel must inevitably have been cut asunder. In the afternoon we secured to a moderately-sized iceberg, drawing eight fathoms, which appeared to offer a fair refuge, and from which we never afterwards parted.”

To this lump of ice the ship clung with the tenacity of a bosom friend, and followed it, literally, through thick and thin! There is something almost ludicrous, as well as striking, in McClure’s account of their connection with this bit of ice. It conveyed them to their furthest north-east position, and back round the Princess Royal Islands—passed the largest within five hundred yards—returned along the coast of Prince Albert’s Land—and finally froze in at latitude 70 degrees 50 minutes north, longitude 117 degrees 55 minutes west, on the 30th September; during which circumnavigation they received many severe “nips,” and were frequently driven close to the shore, from which their dear friend the iceberg, small though he was, kept them off.

Icebergs assume almost every conceivable form, and are seen of every size—sometimes, also, in great numbers. Scoresby mentions one occasion on which he was surrounded by bergs to the number of several hundreds.