OGRES OF THE ATLANTIC

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 13, 19 August 1946, Page 3

OGRES OF THE ATLANTIC

WARNING SHIPS OF ICEBERGS

RADAR USED DURING HOURS OF FOG AND DARKNESS

Radar, the modern miracle of science, is today being used to warn ships in the North Atlantic of the approach of the dreaded iceberg, during the hours of fog and darkness.

Every spring these masses of ice, dislodged from the glaciers of Greenland, come floating southward in stately procession, many of them assuming the most fantastic shapes. Greenland has never completely emerged from the Ice Age, a vast area being covered by a mantle of ice the depth of which may in places be more than a mile. The temperature on Greenland’s Icy Mountains is often 70 degrees below zero, yet the snowfall, strangely enough, is comparatively I small. The sun’s heat, however, is so reduced that the snow does not melt. So each snowfall exerts pressure on the previous one, until there is formed a huge consolidated mass. The pressure of further snowfalls at length causes the accumulated mass to start moving downward toward the valleys, the force of gravity increasing the speed. The snow that has already reached the valleys is now so compressed by the weight of the descending mas that it is transformed into clear ice.

The ice, or glacier as we may now call it, piled up very high, begins to move along the valley to the sea, but at a slower rate.

A glacier may be pushed well out

o sea before a piece becomes de-

tached; but sooner or later the front portion will be broken off by tidal action, and so will be launched one of those floating monsters of the North Atlantic.

The bergs are then borne along by the prevailing currents, some of

them becoming stranded in or near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, others sailing away across the regular steamship tracks to ultimate dissolution in warmer seas.

As they go they drop the heavy rocks and_ lighter debris in the form of mud and silt, which they have picked up on their travels.

The rocks dropped in this way have so accumulated around the Greenland coast and no trawler will dare to drop her trawl in these waters for fear of ruining it. On the other hand, the mud and silt dropped later off the coast of Newfoundland is believed to benefit that island’s chief industry, cod-fishing.

Some' bergs are of enormous size. It is not uncommon to see one towering to a height of 100 feet or so above the water, and monsters 400 feet high, and a quarter of a mile long, have been recorded. When we consider that the submerged portion may be anything from three to nine times the mass above, we get some idea of a berg’s immensity. Icebergs are not so great a menace to shipping as they once were, thanks to the International Ice Patrol, to radio, and to the safety devices like radar with which modern ships are fitted. The Patrol was instituted in January 1914 by agreement between all maritime countries using the North Atlantic, and was directly due to the sinking of the Titanic by an iceberg in April 1912.

The cost of the Patrol is borne by the subscribing countries in proportion to their respective tonnage of shipping using that part of the sea.

The Patrol begins in February and continues throughout the spring and summer months.

As depth of ocean can be measured by an electrical device, so the distance and direction of an iceberg can be gauged. The Patrol’s observing vessel is equipped with such a device, and in her chart room

is a map showing the approximate positions of all ships in the North

Atlantic at any particular time. To any that should be in the vicinity of a. located berg the warning is flash-

ed, and they, with the further aid of their own instruments, contrive

to avoid it.

Thus has come almost completely under the domination of man a cen-turies-old terror of the northern

seas.