AQUEOUS AGENCIES. 



65 



than tin- waste by melting and evaporation in the same 

 regions. If there were no means, of disposing of the ex- 

 cess, it would accumulate without limit. This is pre- 

 vented, and the equilibrium restored by the running off 

 of this excess into the sea as glaciers, and the breaking 

 off as icebergs, which then float away to warmer latitudes, 

 and, there melting, are returned into the general circula- 

 tion of meteoric waters. 



Description. The coast of Greenland, like that of 

 Norway, consists of bold, rocky headlands and deep fiords 

 and high islands off shore. Into each fiord runs a glacier, 

 and. from each emerge numberless icebergs. Baffin's Bay 

 is, therefore, full of icebergs of all sizes, from a few hun- 

 dred feet to many thousand feet on a side. Sometimes 

 several hundred may be seen at one view. They are 

 often two hundred to three hundred feet high, and, since 

 only one seventh is above water, some of them must be 



jtf 



FIG. 33. 



at least two thousand feet thick. In shape they are at 

 first more or less prismatic (Fig. 32), but by the unequal 

 melting of the sun and air, they become finally extremely 



I.K C'ONTK, (;KOT.. 5 



