408 J. Milne — Ice and Ice- work in Newfoundland. 



production of Geological changes equal in power to either glaciers 

 or icebergs. 



By this it is not wished to imply that a mile of coast-ice is equi- 

 valent to a mile of glacier, but rather that coast-ice, taken as a 

 whole, from the extent of its area, may be reasonably compared as 

 a modelling and disintegrating agent of our globe with either the 

 glaciers or icebergs.^ 



Looking at the Northern Hemisphere only, and comparing all the 

 deeply indented coast-lines, say that of North America and Green- 

 land, every yard of which is more or less subject to the action of 

 coast- ice, with the portions throwing off glaciers to form bergs, it 

 will be seen that the coast-ice must in quantity be infinitely greater 

 than the glaciers. All the vast ice-fields which break loose from 

 the frozen regions of the North, and we read of them 300,000 square 

 miles in extent, and seven feet in thickness, are, in their passage 

 South, driven in upon the land, and help to grind the coast-line and 

 transport its boulders. The Northern field-ice, when it arrives in the 

 latitudes of Newfoundland, is often seen to be covered with boulders, 

 gravel kelp, and other materials, showing it to have been at some 

 time or other in contact with the coast. Ice of this description is 

 well known to the sealers, who carefully avoid it, knowing that 

 seals will not be found upon " dirty jam." From this, together 

 with other information I collected, it would seem that, amongst the 

 inhabitants of Newfoundland, the action of coast-ice as a transporting 

 agent is universally recognized, whilst icebergs in the same latitudes 

 are seldom seen with earthy materials upon them. Capt. A. Jackman, 

 during about 30 years of ice-service on the coast of Newfound- 

 land and Labrador, only once saw a mass of stone of any size upon 

 a berg, whilst coast-ice, with its load of material, has continually 

 been met with. That this should be the case appears on considera- 

 tion to be evident ; for at the outset, when the berg leaves its parent, 

 the glacier, in these Northern regions, it has but little moraine 

 matter to carry,^ whilst afterwards the winds tending to drive it in 

 upon the shore seem to affect it but little.^ Now and then it may 



^ Although it may be said that glaciers are not alone confined to Arctic regions, 

 but are also to be seen in the highlands of more temperate climates, it must not be 

 forgotten the distance south that coast-ice is found along shores like those of 

 Jiabrador, JSTewfoundland, and Siberia, where glaciers are unknown. 



- " Owing to the inland valleys (of Greenland) being filled up and levelled to the 

 tops of the hills, there is well-nigh a total absence of those long trains of debris that 

 thunder down the steeps of the Alpine Mountains, and gather in heaps along the sides 

 of the glaciers." — Geikie, " The Great Ice Age^'' p. 62. Dr. Eink, however, saw 

 moraines above Upernivik. 



3 It might be argued that the bergs carry a burden of rocks and debris frozen to 

 their bases; but in Geikie's " Great Ice Age," p. 61, we read: — "A few stones may 

 occasionally remain frozen into the bottom of the detached iceberg, but it is evident 

 that the greater portion of the sub-glacial deposit must remain at the bottom of the 

 sea," and at p. 71 we read : "By far the larger number of Arctic icebergs therefore 

 contain no extraneous matter, and melt away in mid-ocean without leaving behind 

 them any record of their voyage." However it would be unfair not to quote from 

 the observations of Robert Brown (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1870, p. 687), who 

 states that on ascending an iceberg he " almost invariably found moraine which had 

 sunk by the melting of the ice into hoUows, deep out of sight of the voyager sailing 

 past." 



