ICEBERGS AT SEA. 351 



ships which reported injuries of a more or less severe 

 nature. 



" But there have been hairbreadth escapes, and captains at 

 the docks relate most thrilling accounts of the dangers they 

 have passed through. As a spectacle some of these officers 

 report that nothing can be grander or more tremendous than 

 those majestic icebergs." * 



The danger to shipping of meeting icebergs at sea by 

 night or in fogs is of course very great in detecting 

 their presence no reliance is to be placed upon the 

 thermometer, for a variety of reasons, too long to go 

 into here, but which are fully stated in the authority 

 from whose book we quote. It is therefore, we 

 are told 



"much better to go quite slow, keep a hand aloft and on 

 the forecastle, stop the ship occasionally, and listen for the 

 sound of breakers, or the echo of the steam whistle;" also "a 

 large iceberg will denote its presence even on the darkest 

 night, by a sort of whiteness or halo, known as 'ice blink.'" f 



Such we are assured, are the principal precautions 

 which experience suggests for the guidance of seamen 

 on these trying occasions. 



It has often been supposed that when ships came 

 to the end of navigable limits in the polar regions, 

 explorations could be pushed forward by means of 

 sledging parties, travelling over the ice until they 

 reached the pole. Unfortunately arctic experiences 

 thus far seem to preclude the hope of success which 



* See Article in Morning Post of June 7, 1893. (Assuming the 

 relative proportions between the submerged portion of these icebergs to 

 be about 7 parts to I part appearing above water, it follows that a 

 berg 1 500 feet high over sea level mentioned above would represent 

 a mass of ice 10,500 feet thick). 



t See Wrinkles on Practical Navigation, by S. T. S. Lecky, Master 

 Mariner, Comr. R.N.R., Edition 1887, pp. 219, 220. 



