84 



MARION EXPEDITIOlSr TO DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 



The condition of the fast ice vitally affects iceberg production in 

 Melville Bay. Diiring a normal winter, fast ice will make out there 

 to a line from Wilcox Head to Cape York, and it often happens that 

 the ice does not completely break up during the next, or possibly 

 during several summers. Thus the icebergs are free to drift out into 

 Baffin Bay in some years from July to October, but in other years 



The Tidewater Glaciers from Cape York to Svantenhuk Peninsula 



Figure 42. — There is a total of 19 sizable tidewater glaciers in this section, out of which 

 8 constitute the principal producers of icebergs. They are in order north to south : 

 Gade, King Oscar, Nansen, Dietrichson, Steenstrup, Hayes, Giesecke. and Upernivik. 

 It IS estimated that there are 1,500 sizable icebergs discharged annually from this 

 Melville Bay region. 



they may lie penned against the glaciers. Thus, Koch (1928, p. 200) 

 in 1916 and 1917 observed many bergs jammed against the fronts of 

 Steenstrup and Dietrichson Glaciers. In 1920, however, conditions 

 changed, the fast ice broke up, and more than 20 square miles of 

 densely packed icebergs were set free to drift offshore. Allowing a 

 lag of one year for the bergs to drift from Melville Bav to New- 



