METHOD OF AVOIDING DANGER FROM BERGS 15 I 



navies should be employed in the destruction of the icebergs 

 of the North Atlantic, According to this plan the bergs are 

 to be bombarded with great shells, which, penetrating deep 

 into the ice and exploding there, will shatter them to i)ieces. 

 There is no doubt that this would be a far more profitable 

 expenditure of ammunition than the uses for which it is 

 designed ; for any target is better than the dear-bought 

 frame of man or the products of his skill of hand and mind ; 

 but it is more than doubtful if the end could be attained in 

 this way. In the first place, to accomplish the desired result, 

 it would be necessary for men-of-war to watch the exit 

 of Baffin's Bay in the spring-time, and break up the bergs 

 into relatively small bits, so that they would no longer 

 float with their bases in the deep southward-setting current, 

 but would drift with the floe-ice. To do this, with several 

 hundred great masses, would require an enormous expendi- 

 ture of money. Including the wear and tear of guns, the 

 shells from the great modern ordnance cannot be fired at a 

 less cost than five hundred dollars for each shell, and it 

 would probably require many hundred rounds of ammunition 

 to break up a single berg. It would not at all serve the 

 purpose to rend the ice to pieces in the mid-Atlantic district, 

 for there the fragments would float about and multiply the 

 dangers of navigation ; such work, if done, would make that 

 region nearly impassable for a portion of the year, though 

 from the readier melting of the ice the trouble would not 

 endure so long. On the whole, this interesting project does 

 not seem practicable. 



The only way to avoid the perils due to this berg field 

 of the Atlantic is for ships to take a course which will lead 

 them to the south of the tolerably well-marked field into 



