CONDITIONS OF CONTINENTAL ICE. 211 



in height would not imply that this was his measured 

 height ; but if we asserted that he was 5 feet 6 J 

 inches or 5 feet 8f inches high, we should necessarily 

 convey this impression. In like manner, Captain 

 Smithers, by assigning to the iceberg an altitude so 

 particular as that of 580 feet, distinctly conveys the 

 impression that such was the height obtained by 

 actual measurement. Similarly we conclude that the 

 captains of the " Queen of Nations" and the " Agneta" 

 actually measured the icebergs which they respectively 

 declared to be 720 and 960 feet high. 



In reply, it may perhaps be asserted that no record 

 of an iceberg 500 or 600 feet in height is to be found 

 in the log-books of the Navy, and that all those 

 instances of enormous icebergs have been given by 

 masters of merchant vessels, who, as a rule, are not so 

 competent to make accurate measurements. It is 

 doubtless true that the latter generally are not so 

 well qualified for such work as naval officers ; but it 

 is hardly credible that they should all have gone so 

 far astray in their measurements as to estimate heights 

 at 500 and 600 feet which in reality were only 200 

 feet. Now, if but one berg 500 feet high has ever 

 been seen in the Southern Ocean, it is proved that 

 even twice 1400 feet is not the limit of the thickness 

 of the Antarctic ice. 



But it is not the case that no naval officer has met 

 an iceberg of those enormous dimensions ; for, as we have 

 already seen, Mr. Towson states that one of our most 

 celebrated and talented naval surveyors informed him 

 that he had met icebergs in the southern regions 800 

 feet high. It is, however, not to be wondered at that 

 so few naval officers have seen such bergs, for they are 

 of very rare occurrence. They have been met with 

 chiefly in latitudes that are traversed by thousands of 



