428 I. P. Koch. 
of a larger iceberg, and more especially the significance appears in 
localities such as the sound between Edvards © and Carl Hegers ©, 
where the icebergs on a large area are quite densely packed. 
The age of about ten years, which — by a direct application of 
the results of the STEENSTRUP experiment — we arrived at in the 
case of one of the larger icebergs of Storstrommen, must thus be 
supposed to be many times too low; in reality there seems to be 
nothing unreasonable in the supposition that they may reach an age 
of more than a hundred years. 
It was mentioned above that the icebergs in the inner part of 
the sound between Edvards Ø and Carl Hegers Ø were so densely 
packed that they formed, so to speak, a floating, regenerated glacier, 
which gradually dissolved into single icebergs, only after they had 
got further out into the sound. Similar conditions may, by the way, 
be observed in the large ice fjords of West Greenland. This disolving 
of the “regenerated glacier” is partially explained by the aforesaid 
observations and reflections on the melting of the icebergs. 
Under the “calving” enormous quantities of greater or lesser 
fragments of calving ice are formed besides the icebergs proper, and 
it is these fragments which fill up the intervals between the larger 
icebergs in the interior of the sound between Edvards Ø and Carl 
Hegers ©, so that the idea of a regenerated glacier presents itself. 
By and by, however, the ice fragments and smaller icebergs melt, 
and one therefore gets the immediate impression that the icebergs 
further out in the sound again separate from the compact ice mass. 
An important factor in the melting process of the ice is un- 
doubtedly the ruptures due to the frost. It is a well-known fact 
that on a day with a summer temperature one may in the great ice 
fjords of Greenland at any moment hear a sound which bears a 
striking resemblance to that of gun fire. That sound is due to the 
icebergs “calving”, in that melting water from the part of the ice- 
berg lying above the surface of the water penetrates the cracks, 
where it freezes and then breaks off part of the iceberg. It is not so 
well known that the icebergs — and the small ones in particular — 
on occasions of this kind may become entirely “pulverized” and 
dissolve into an aggregate of single glacier granules, or smaller lumps. 
However, the usual thing is that only a small part of the iceberg 
breaks off and falls into the water. The iceberg, which thus loses 
its equilibrium, then starts a series of quite slow oscillations, like a 
pendulum, and as a rule ends by settling in a position deviating 
somewhat from the original equilibrium. For an iceberg suddenly 
to turn over and veer round, such as has often been related, is a 
phenomenon which rarely occurs. 
