A MAMMOTH ICEBERG.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 166, 22 October 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MAMMOTH ICEBERG.

Among3t the almost countless and colossal icebergs recently reported by incoming steamers that encountered by the City of London on her last voyage, ‘about 1,500 feet long and 300 feet high,’ commands special note. As the special gravity of ice is so much less than that of Atlantic sea-water it is ascertained that the portion of a berg under water is over eight times as great as that exposed to the air. This proportion is based on the supposition that the iceberg is symmetrical, but in any case we may assume that about sever-eighths is submerged, and probably this particular berg could not have floated in water under 2,500 feet, or 400 fathoms in depth. The Gulf Stream off the Newfoundland Banks, where this tall iceberg was observed, is too superficial to float it, the warm current not being more than 100 fathoms deep, so that about three-quarters of its submerged volume is under the impact of the flow of glacial water from the polar basin moving under and in a direction contrary to that of the Gulf Stream. Thus propelled by an invisible submarine force the berg iu question had ploughed its southerly way against wind and surface current to the forty-third parallel; anti as the City of London reported it to be ‘in compact form, which will take some months to disappear,’ it will no doubt advance much further south in the track of vessels moving between the Eastern ports of America and Europe, and possibly in the regular ship track from New York to Bio Janeiro, since the polar overllow which has it in tow trends far to the west of the Newfoundland meridians. It will be well, therefore, for vessels crossing the West Atlantic basin, even on comparatively low latitude, to be on their guard against this and similar mammoth bergs.