76 THE WORLDS LUMBER ROOM. 



called " anchor " ice, and remains there glued even when 

 the tide rises, growing thicker and thicker. When at last 

 it floats away, it is sufficiently massive to carry with it, not 

 only large quantities of boulders and stones, but also the 

 anchors, cables, &c., of the fishermen, which have chanced 

 to be embedded in it. 



Sometimes, where the water is deeper, these flat masses 

 of ice, though prevented by the rise and fall of the tide 

 from adhering to the shore, yet remain near enough to 

 receive drifts of snow and the waste from the cliffs, and 

 frequently grow into islands many leagues in length and of 

 great thickness. 



Icebergs often travel long distances before they melt 

 away. Those from Baffin's Bay come as far south as the 

 Azores, and those from the south come within a short 

 distance of the Cape of Good Hope, so that a large area 

 of the sea-bottom must be strewn with the loads they drop 

 annually, and should it ever rise to the surface, will be 

 found covered with " drift," consisting of gravel, stones, 

 and boulders, which have no connection with the rocks on 

 which they rest, and are scattered about helter-skelter, 

 with no more attempt at sorting or stratification than if 

 they had been " shot " from so many dust-carts. 



To a small extent, icebergs are dust-makers as well as 

 carriers, for when they strand, they groove and polish the 

 rocks in true glacier style, and, off North America, they 

 push pebbles and sand before them, leaving the submarine 

 rocks quite bare. 



