PHYSICAL AND CLIMATAL CONDITIONS. 113 



remain. Those wliieli remain until .lutiimn are reduced 

 to mere skeletons; but if they survive until winter, they 

 figuin j^frow in dimensions, owing to the accumulation 

 upon them of snow and new ice. Those that I liave seen 

 early in July were large and nuissive in their ])ro[)ortions. 

 The few that remained in Septcmher were smaller in size 

 and cut into fantastic ami toppling j)innacles. Vaughan 

 records that on the 30th of May, l8o8, he counted in the 

 straits of Belle-Tsle 49(3 bergs, the least of them sixty feet 

 in height, some of tliem half a mile long and two hundred 

 feet high. Only one-eighth of the volume of floating ice 

 appears above water, and many of tiiese great l)ergs may 

 thus touch the ground in a deptli of thirty fathoms or 

 more, so that if we imagine four hundred of them moving 

 up and down under the iuHuenceof the current, oscillating 

 slowly with the motion of the sea, and grinding on tiie 

 rocks and stone-covered l)()tt(un at all depths from the 

 centre of the channel, we may form some conception of 

 the elfects of these huge polishers of tlie sea-Hoor. 



Of the bergs wiiicii pass outsitle of tlie straits, many 

 ground on the banks oM' ]Jelle-Tsle. Yaughan has seen a 

 hundreil large bergs aground at one time on the banks, 

 and they ground on vari<jus parts of the banks of New- 

 foundland, and all along the coast of that island. As 

 they are borne by the deei)-seated cold current, and are 

 scarcely at all ali'ected Ijy the wind, they move somewhat 

 uniforndy lu a direction from X.E. to S.W., and when 

 they touch the bottom the striatiou or grooving which 

 they produce nuist l>e in that direction. 



In passing through the straits in July, one sees a great 



number of l)ergs. Home are low and flat-topped with 



perpendicular sides, others concave or roof-shaped like 



great tents pitched on the sea; others are rounded 



9 



