114 THE ICK A(iK IX CANADA. 



ill outline oi' rise; into towers and })iiiiiiieles. ^fost; of 

 them are of a jairc dead while, like loaf .su;j;ar, shaded 

 with ])ale Iduisii ^rei'ii in the ,ii;reat rents and reeent 

 fractnres. A few of thiMu seem as if tln'V had ,nrounded 

 and then overtnrned, presenting- a Hat and seored snrface 

 covered with sand and earthy matter. 



Viewed as i^eolo^deal agents, the icebergs are, in the first 

 ])laee, j)arts of the eosmieal arrangements for e(|nali/;ing 

 temperature, and for dispersing ilu! gresit accumulations 

 of ice in the arctic regions, which might otherwise 

 unsettle the climatic and even the static e([uililtrium of 

 our glol)e, as they are believed liy some imaginative 

 physicists and geologists to have done in the so-called 

 glacial period. If the ice-islands in the Atlantic, like 

 lum[>s of ice in a i)itc]ier of water, chill our climate in 

 spring, they are at the same time agents in preventing a 

 still more serious secular chilling which might result 

 from the growth without limit of the arctic snow and ice. 

 They are also constantly employed in wearing down the 

 arctic land, and aided by the great northern current from 

 J.)avis's straits, in scattering its debris of stones, boulders 

 and sand over the banks along the American coast. 

 Incidentally to this work, they smooth and level the 

 higher parts of the sea bottom, and mark it with furrows 

 and striae indicative of the direction of their own motion. 

 In this manner nndtitudes of boulders from JialUn's bay 

 are annually distributed along the bed of the arctic 

 current off the American coast, and are buried in the 

 accumulations of mud which are being laid down on the 

 banks by this current ; while in the strait of IJelle-Isle 

 the same effects are being produced, on a small scale, 

 which, in the I'leistocene period, were produced in tlie 

 greater and wider strait then formed by the St. Lawrence 



