DANGERS FEOM ICEBEEGS. 



43 



its burden of ice, in consequence of the movement which carries the 

 earth in an easterly direction and causes a deviation from its course in 

 everything coming from the north.* Carried by this current, which 

 drives them in the opposite direction to the Gulf-stream, continu- 

 ing its course towards the south-west below the surface current 



Fig. 13.— Course of the Icebergs between Europe and America. 



of the latter, the icebergs, like ships cutting the waves with their 

 prows, pass majestically through the water which dashes against them. 

 Some fragments of mighty ice-fields, brought from Greenland by 

 Polar currents and then drifted northward by the Gulf- stream, are 

 seen here and there proceeding in an opposite direction from the 

 rest. The accompanying map, borrowed from Redfield, indicates the 

 position of all the icebergs and ice-fields recently observed in the 

 western part of the North Atlantic Ocean. 



It is principally in this region of the ocean that flotillas of ice are 

 to be dreaded by navigators. The sailors of Newfoundland hardly 



* Sec below, p. 62. 



