34 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 



Antarctic seas. Members of a German scientific 

 expedition to the west coast measured a monster 

 berg that was over four hundred feet above the 

 water, but the highest usually seen probably do 

 not exceed two hundred feet. The portion seen 

 above water when an iceberg is floating is about 

 one-eighth of the whole vertical thickness of the 

 mass. Mr R. E. Priestley tells me that, on the 

 average, Antarctic icebergs, which have more air 

 included in the ice than Arctic bergs, and are 

 therefore lighter, have about one-sixth of their 

 mass above water-level. 



The glittering berg, the mariner's foe, 



Rears pinnacled peak on high, 

 But few are there know how far below 

 That isle of emerald ice and snow 



Its dark foundations lie. 



It is a fairly common experience to see a large 

 berg of more or less rectangular form penetrated 

 by a tunnel, like a massive arch that is gradually 

 broadened by the action of the sea and sun at the 

 expense of the sides and roof, until the whole breaks 

 into two or, by the destruction of the crown of the 

 arch, two pinnacled bergs are produced. It has 

 been suggested by a Swiss writer, Prof. Mercanton, 

 that many of the innumerable forms assumed by 

 floating icebergs are derived from tabular blocks 

 through which water has driven a tunnel. Such 

 observations as I was able to make lend support 

 to this hypothesis. 



The sketches of icebergs stranded in Disko Bay 

 opposite the Danish Arctic Station, reproduced in 



