224 H. C. RUSSELL. 
It seems unnecessary to urge upon those most interested, the 
importance of the experiments suggested. My investigations 
have convinced me that the icebergs do drift with the wind at a 
very appreciable rate, and there certainly are many risks, much 
anxiety and loss of time which might be avoided if my suggestions 
prove to be facts as I think they will. 
THE NUMBER OF ICEBERGS. 
It would be a very useful addition to the information usually 
put in a ship’s log, if every vessel made an effort to keep count of 
the number of icebergs seen every day. If would be difficult and 
perhaps impossible to count them all, but to know how many they 
could count in each case with a statement, that it was only a 
quarter or half of those seen would be a great help to estimating 
the number that are actually floating about in the track of vessels 
which would be very useful in studying the reports. In very 
many logs no reference is made to the number of icebergs, no 
doubt because they seem to be innumerable ; but it appears from 
the records which came to me that in some places there are a few 
large icebergs, and in others the sea is almost covered by small 
ones. 
In the following pages 7,429 icebergs are recorded, but No. 170 
counted 4,500 icebergs, No. 177 saw 977 icebergs, and No. 158 
reports 376, and so on. There is another point which might be 
added to the reports and would increase their value, and that is, 
the relative density of the numbers passed from day to day. For 
instance, the ‘“‘ Hebe ”—log 190—passed through 1,600 miles of 
ice: the “Matalua” from Nov. 9 to 14th 1896, passed through 
ice for 1,600 miles : the “Otarama”—log 158—in November 1896 
passed through ice for 1,100 miles. If im such cases it could be 
said there was a berg in every square mile or in every ten miles 
square of the ocean and so on, it would add much to the value 
of the record. 
The following table shews the number of icebergs recorded by 
each vessel in the list at the end of this paper :— 
