TlS ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



It is possible to find bergs with a pinnacle rising high out of the 

 water, but offering little weight to the mass below. The highest 

 berg in the Arctic which has been recorded had pinnacles 1,500 feet 

 high. Bergs are produced all the year round throughout the entire 

 extent of the coast line of Greenland, but the huge masses which 

 push out into the open sea arise either on the west coast between 

 Disco Bay and Smith Sound, or on the east coast south of the parallel 

 of 68°. Besides the icebergs formed from the Greenland glaciers, a 

 few come around Cape Farewell from the Spitzbergen Sea, and some 

 may be traced from Hudson Bay. 



MOVEMENT OF ICE FROM THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



The Labrador current flows southward along the coasts of Baffin 

 Land and Labrador. The average rate is from 10 to 36 miles per 

 day, but occasionally it ceases altogether.* As soon as free the 

 icebergs find their way into the Arctic current, and float gradually 

 southward. The journey is by no means an easy one, and few bergs 

 survive. There are many mishaps, such as grounding in the Arctic 

 Basin with ultimate breaking up, stranding along the Labrador coast, 

 where destruction takes place, and falling to pieces entirely in the 

 open sea. Only a small percentage ever reach the Grand Bank and 

 the routes of the transatlantic liners, so many delays attend their 

 journey. It is well kno%\Ti that many bergs seen in any one season 

 may have been produced several seasons before. Taking the Labrador 

 current as 10 miles per day, a berg once formed and drifting freely 

 would make the journey southward in from four to five months. 

 The difference in time of two bergs reaching a low latitude may cover 

 a period of one or two years even when these start on the same 

 day. so devious are the paths into which chance may direct these 

 floating masses. Undercurrents affect the largest icebergs, and 

 frequently they are seen to move backward against the wind and 

 surface water. Extensive field ice offers an obstruction to the move- 

 ments of the bergs, hence the number met with from one season 

 to another must depend on the mildness or severity of the previous 

 summer in the north. 



THE LABRADOR CURRENT. 



No part of the oceans of the world is of so much interest to man- 

 kind as this cold Arctic current. It brings down the cold of the 

 north to temper the heat of the Tropics, and thus tends to equalize 

 the temperature of the world. It is the home and feeding ground 

 of the world's greatest supply of fish food, and supports more marine 

 life than any other part of the world. It conveys each year south- 

 ward the greatest menace to the navigator in the form of huge ice- 



1 U. S. Hydrograpliif Keporl, 1909. 



