112 THE ICE AGE IN CANADA. 



power ; and while it is quite wrong to designate any 

 theory of glaciation by floating ice as an " Iceberg theory," 

 these huge ice-islands are not to be neglected in our 

 estimate of factors in the work of transport and planing 

 of surfaces. Their main agency is, of course, in the arctic 

 seas, but their effects are felt as far south as the coast of 

 Newfoundland and the entrance to the gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, where alone I have had any opportuity of 

 observing them. 



The snow-clad hills of Greenland send down to the sea 

 great glaciers, which, in the bays and fiords of that 

 inhospitable region, form at their extremities huge cliffs 

 of solid ice, and annually " calve," as the seamen say, 

 or give off a great progeny of ice islands which, slowly 

 drifted to the southward by the arctic current, pass 

 along the American coast, diffusing a cold and bleak 

 atmosphere, until they melt in the warm waters of the 

 Gulf stream. Many of these bergs enter the straits of 

 Belle-Isle, for the arctic current clings closely to the coast, 

 and a part of it seems to be deflected into the gulf of St. 

 Lawrence through this passage, carrying with it many 

 large bergs. 



Mr. Vaughan, late superintendent of the lighthouse at 

 Belle-Isle, has kept a register of icebergs for several years. 

 He states that for ten which enter the straits, fifty drift 

 to the southward, and that most of those which enter 

 pass inward on the north side of the island, drift toward 

 the western end of the straits, and then pass out on the 

 south of the island, so that the straits seem to be merely 

 a sort of eddy in the course of the bergs. The number 

 in the straits varies much in different 'seasons of the year. 

 The greatest number are seen in spring, especially in May 

 and June ; and toward autumn and in the winter very few 



