68 



24 hours entirely effaced the berg as a menace to navigation. This 

 is one of the most rapid cases of disintegration of which the patrol 

 has an account and it brings out one fact quite forcibly, namely, 

 that bergs which attain extremely far south drifts such as near the 

 Azores Islands or near the British Isles can only be accomplished 

 when the berg is floating in a comparatively calm sea. 



A summary for the month indicated the following outstanding 

 features: Field ice was not reported south of Newfoundland after the 

 6th of May. There was this month, however, a great increase over 

 April in the number of bergs reported in the northwestern North 

 Atlantic. The first group of bergs, 21 in number, to arrive at the 

 Tail of the Grand Bank (the gateway to the Atlantic), were sighted 

 by the patrol on the 13th and 14th instant. A great increase in the 

 number occurred during these few days of clear weather when ships 

 on northern routes were also able to sight them. Fog enshrouded 

 the regions from the 15th to 21st but the latter day of which we had 

 a clearing and 26 more bergs were found around the Tail. These 

 it appears quite safe to state were not the same as those sighted 

 the 13th and 14th instants. The 15th to 24th many more bergs 

 sighted between the forty-eighth and forty-ninth parallels by ships 

 which now had commenced to use the Cape Race tracks. May 22 

 to 31 the patrol kept in touch with the southern and eastern fringe of 

 ice and tracked "strays" to extremely low latitudes, across the west- 

 bound steamer lane. 



It is difficult to estimate the number of icebergs south of Newfound- 

 land during the month of May due to the great duplication of reports, 

 but to the best of our belief we state that there were a total of 168, 

 which is 10 per cent more than normal. As for the area south of the 

 Grand Banks we estimate a total of 36 bergs, which is 100 per cent 

 more than normal. This is a great increase in numbers over what was 

 in these regions at any time earlier this year or during any part of 

 1925 or 1924. The sudden and great increase in numbers, which 

 came with a rush during the month of May, is more or less in agree- 

 ment with the general character of the atmospheric circulation which 

 prevailed December to March, 1925-26. Conditions were unfavor- 

 able towards a normal distribution of ice from October to January, 

 but from January onward atmospheric conditions changed to a 

 diametrically opposite character, which undoubtedly is reflected in a 

 correspondingly sudden increase in numbers of bergs around the 



Grand Banks for May. 



JUNE 



The preceding month, May, indicated a total of 168 bergs south of 

 Newfoundland, and 36 south of the Tail of the Bank. The latter 

 figure is twice the normal number and consequently the patrol looked 

 forward with no small amount of conviction that an abnormal num- 



