AND TRANSPORTING AGENT—PREST. 341 
I think that a great mistake is made in making no allowance 
for the melting of drift ice by water and air during its 1000 or 
2000 miles journey to the temperate zone. When we reflect 
that icebergs 300 feet in height are common in the Arctic 
regions, and that very few of these are seen off the Newfound- 
land and Labrador coasts, the waste must be enormous. Many 
thousand tons of ice from the exterior of the bergs, containing, 
of course, the greater part of the debris, have been dissolved by 
air and water or have been washed away by the waves and surf 
of these stormy seas near their starting point. Icebergs, of 
which I saw several hundred from 40 to 200 feet high, were 
washed as clean as surf and melting water could wash them 
Overturned bergs showed the same cleanly condition. Icebergs 
excavated to a dept of 100 feet by wave-washed caverns showed 
the purest and most beautiful blue, untinged by the slightest 
impurity. This melting process which is done chiefly by the 
sea, is so rapid at the water’s edge that before they reach the 
Straits of Belle Isle many of the smaller bergs assume the form 
of gigantic umbrellas and finally topple over. These ice 
umbrellas, by the way, are one of the most fantastic sights of 
the northern seas. Often the caps are 30 to 60 feet in diameter 
with a stem 3 to 6 feet thick, and 5 to 15 feet high. They do 
not appear to be always perfectly } oised, but the immense weight 
of the lower portion keeps the upper part erect. And this ice 
is always free from impurities. 
In regard to field or pan ice, I have examined it from high 
hills with a powerful glass, and have chopped my way through 
jt in an open boat, but have very seldom seen a discoloured pan. 
The only ice-borne debris worthy of mention is that frozen 
to the bottom of field or pan ice while grounded on shoals at 
low tide. Sand or mud is frozen to the bottom; then at high 
tide this is covered by a layer of pure ice, which process is often 
repeated. Though the probabilities are that nearly all shoal- 
water ice from the far north will be inter-stratified with debris 
yet the fact is that an exceedisgly small part of what came 
under my observation was thus stratified. Though watching 
