latitude of Washington, D. C, just south of the thirty-ninth parallel, 

 before it disappeared. During the same year the most southerly 

 report of field ice, outside of that which was reported from the ap- 

 proaches to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was far to the north of the lati- 

 tude of Portland, Me., or Halifax, Nova Scotia. The field ice of the 

 Grand Banks region is broken off from the outer limits of the Arctic 

 pack ice, or is formed locall}^ on the surface of the sea along the North 

 American coast to the northward of Cape Race, Newfoundland. 

 Bad as it is for shipping north of the forty-seventh parallel at times, 

 it is, when compared with the bergs, a relatively short-lived ephemeral 

 affair, even along the northern tracks that run across the Grand Banks. 



The patrol vessels do not attempt to destroy the bergs, as many 

 people have been led to think through reading erroneous statements 

 that sometimes get into newspapers and news reels after demolition 

 experiments have been carried out on the ice. Except under very 

 favorable conditions, bergs are dangerous to board in the open ocean 

 because of the w^ash of the sea against their hard steep sides. The 

 risks are augmented by the fact that the sea about them is usually 

 icy and boisterous in early spring. Later on when conditions have 

 ameliorated the bergs are much more frequently cracking up, drop- 

 ping off large overhanging ice masses, and turning over. 



The ice patrol's experiments have shown that mining operations 

 with high explosives, in the few cases when they are practicable are 

 almost useless. The large bergs are so deep lying, massive, and hard 

 that the explosion of a hundred pounds, more or less, of T. N. T. has 

 very little effect other than to increase the size of the hole in which 

 the charge is placed and to shake off a few pieces of ice already about 

 to fall. Gunfire is even more futile than mining. Well placed shots 

 will sometimes bring down a few tons of ice into the sea, but when it 

 is considered that 500,000-ton bergs are not uncommon and that only 

 about one-fourth to one-sixth of the mass of a berg projects above 

 water to serve as a target, the futility of this method of attack becomes 

 apparent. 



The series of experiments on the destruction of bergs undertaken 

 by Prof. H. T. Barnes, of McGill University, have been followed by 

 the ice-patrol authorities with interest. His thermite charges seem to 

 give a little more promise of success than any other method evolved 

 to date, but there are grave practical difficulties connected with 

 placing the thermite in the heart of the bergs where it can act most 

 effectively. Up to the present time, at least, it would seem that the 

 only practicable thing that can be done is to watch, and to keep 

 shipping advised of the changing positions of the various southernmost 

 bergs and ice fields until in the natural course of events they melt. 

 They disappear rather rapidly as they drift south into warmer waters 

 during the advance of spring. As stated above, the field ice is disposed 



