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dered the commencement of ice patrol at 2400 G. C. T., April 15, 1937, 

 and Headquarters and the United States Hydrographic Office were 

 so advised. 



To review the story of the berg repeatedly mentioned in the para- 

 graph above, as aground in latitude 44°25' N., longitude 49°05' W., 

 this berg was first reported AprU 7, and was identified and located by 

 the patrol ship that same day. It was visited each day thereafter up 

 to and including the morning of April 11, at wliich time it was ap- 

 parently still hard aground in the same position in 33 fathoms of water. 

 Advantage of good weather was taken on April 12 to scout out the 

 area between latitude 44° N., and latitude 43° N., as mentioned above. 

 No ice was sighted. Although the visibility was poor April 13, it was 

 attempted to find the grounded berg. Its position and the immediate 

 vicinity were searched but because of the low visibility the search 

 was inconclusive. It not having been found, however, and it being 

 in the strength of the Labrador Current while aground, its where- 

 abouts became a serious concern of the patrol. Its possible movements 

 may be summarized as follows: Assuming that the berg rolled or was 

 moved sufficiently to dislodge itself immediately after the Mendota 

 left it at noon, April 11, the current would have carried it almost due 

 south clear of the shoal. But 10 miles south of its starting position the 

 current bends strongly towards the shoal and this tendency, combined 

 with the strong northeast winds of the 13th, would have surely carried 

 the berg back onto the shoal again. Admitting the possibility that it 

 might have remained clear of the shoal it would have drifted southward 

 along the Banks with the current. In either case, the scouting on 

 April 12 would have found it so that its immediate dislodgement seems 

 unlikely. As the position was run over in clear weather on April 15, 

 and the berg's departure definitely established, the 12, 13, or 14 are 

 the days it must have moved if it was dislodged as a whole to drift 

 with the current. The scouting of April 14 and 15 exhausted the 

 possibilities of its moving southward close in along the Banks as it 

 most naturally would, or of moving due south or south southeast, its 

 only other possible directions, and definitely established its disappear- 

 ance from the critical area. However, it cannot be thus summarily 

 dismissed, for, when last seen on April 11, it was the largest berg south 

 of latitude 45° N. and the possibiUty of its melting is beyond considera- 

 tion. The only hypothesis which would explain the failure to find the 

 berg in its normal drift tracks is that being hard aground and unable 

 to float freely, it had internal stresses set up in it by sloughing off 

 pieces, wliich it did from time to time, changing the distribution of 

 weight and mass sufficiently to cause it to break up into two or three 

 pieces small enough to drift over the 30-fathom curve where they will 

 join the Grand Banks oscillatory rotary circulation and melt in the 

 constantly warming Bank water. 



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