ARCTIC GLACIERS. 



73 



great Humboldt glacier of Greenland, which is sixty miles 

 broad and ends in a cliff of ice 300 feet high, could not 

 send out such icebergs as these, for every foot of ice above 

 the water must be balanced by from seven to nine feet 

 below it, so that the whole height of an iceberg showing 



Fig. 17. DIAGRAM OF THE " INLANDS ICE," GREENLAND, EXTENDING 



INTO THE SEA, AND ENDING IN A STEEP FALL FROM IOO TO 

 203 FEET HIGH, FROM WHICH ICEBERGS ARE BREAKING OFF. 



(After Nordenskjold.) 



300 feet, might be between 2,000 and 3,000 feet. There 

 are, however, glaciers in the Far North which are quite 

 capable of sending out mountains of ice of this size ; and 

 as, owing to the extreme severity of the climate, which no 

 rock can withstand, the Arctic glaciers are usually very 

 heavily laden, those icebergs which break from the corners, 

 must often carry away large loads of rubbish. 



Yet it is said that, though sometimes loaded with beds 

 of earth and rock, weighing, as has been conjectured, 



