360 SUTHERLAND, DAVIs' STRAIT AND BAFFIN'S BAY. 



Icebergs. — From what has been observed in the Alps, it may be 

 considered a settled question that the downward motion of the 

 glaciers is constant and comparatively unaffected by low tempe- 

 ratures applied to the surface, especially when the depth of the solid 

 ice amounts to several hundred feet. In the Alps, and even within 

 the tropics, they travel great distances from the snow-clad heights, 

 until frequently \\\q-y gradually descend into the regions habitable 

 by man, where they undergo dissolution by the increase of 

 temperature. In Greenland, after descending into the sea through 

 the valleys, they retain their hold of the land * until the buoyant 

 property of water upon ice comes into operation, and then they 

 give birth to icebergs, sometimes of enormous dimensions. f The 

 constant rise and fall of the tide exerts great power in detaching 

 these floating ice-islands. By it, a hinge-like action is set up as soon 

 as the edge of the glacier comes within its influence, and is carried 

 on, although the surface of the sea for many .leagues around is 

 covered with one continuous sheet of ice. After summer has set 

 in and somewhat advanced, the surface-ice either drifts away or 

 dissolves, and then we have winds prevailing in a direction contrary 

 to what they had been during the cold season of the year ; and the 

 result of this is a great influx of water into Davis' Strait, which 

 causes tides unusually high for other seasons of the year, and 

 which in their turn set at liberty whole fields of icebergs, then to 

 commence their slow southward course. In August 1850 the 

 number set free in a deep fiord near Oraenak, North-east Bay, so 

 occupied the navigable passage out of the harbour at that settle- 

 ment, that the Danish ship which had but a few weeks previously 

 entered the harbour was in great danger of being detained for the 

 winter. In the same month in 1852, the whole of the coast south- 

 ward from Melville Bay, extending over a space of 180 miles in 

 length and probably 12 to 15 miles in breadth, was rendered 

 perfectly unnavigable by any means whatever. When we sailed 

 along that portion of the coast about the middle of August in the 

 season of 1852, Ave were astounded by the constant booming 

 sounds that issued from whole fields of floating icebergs, often 

 bursting and turning over. To me the change appeared to be 

 remarkable, for I spent the months of June and July of 1850 in 

 company with a whole fleet of whalers there, sailing safely in the 

 very place vv^hich now we could no more enter with our ship than 

 navigate her through the city of London, half submerged in the 

 sea, and all the houses tumbling about and butting each other as 

 in an earthquake. At Cape York one could count nearly two 

 hundred icebergs in a semicircle of twelve miles, all of which 

 appeared to have been quite recently detached from the glacier ; 

 and in the upper part of Wolstenholme Sound, the icebergs, that 

 had come off" from the three protruding points of the glacier 

 entering it, Avere so closely planted together, that it was not 



* Some of these glaciers of Northern Greenland push forward into the sea 

 to the extent of from one to three miles. 



t For the description of an immense iceberg, 200 feet high above the sea 

 and two miles in length, see Sutherland's Journal, vol. i. pp. 61, 62. 



