324 Icebergs. 



pany during the whole of the last century, contain no account of 

 Icebergs having been seen in the course of their navigation in the 

 southern hemisphere, although several of these ships proceeded 

 into the parallels of latitude forty degrees, forty-one minutes, and 

 forty-two degrees. But, during 1828, and 1829, it appears that 

 icebergs were occasionally met with by several ships in their 

 passage, very near the Cape of Good Hope, between the lati- 

 tudes of thirty-six and thirty-nine degrees. The particulars 

 relating to these observations, are detailed in the paper. The 

 most remarkable occurred in the voyage of the brig Ehza, from 

 Antwerp, bound to Batavia, which, on the 28th of April, 1828, 

 fell in with five icebergs, in lat, thirty-seven degrees thirty-one 

 minutes, S. long, eighteen degrees seventeen minutes E. of Green- 

 wich. They had the appearance of church steeples, of a height 

 from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet ; and the sea 

 broke so violently against these enormous masses, that it was at 

 first suspected they might be fixed on some unknown shoal, until, 

 on sounding, no bottom could be discovered. 



It is remarkable, that, in general, icebergs seem to be met in 

 low latitudes, nearly at the same period of the year, namely, in 

 April or May, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, 

 although the seasons are reversed in these two divisions of the 

 globe. In order to account for the origin and accretion of the 

 southern icebergs, the author thinks it probable, that there 

 exists a large tract of land near the antarctic circle, somewhere 

 between the meridian of London and the twentieth degree of E. 

 longitude, whence these icebergs have been carried in a N. and 

 N. E. direction, by the united forces of currents, winds, and 

 waves, prevailing from S. S. W. and S. W. Bouvet's and 

 Thompson's islands are not of sufiicien't magnitude ; and Sand- 

 wich land and Kesguelin's island are too remote to be the source 

 of the icebergs lately observed in the vicinity of the Cape. From 

 their unprecedented descent during the last two years, it is most 

 probable that the disruption of these masses of ice, from the 

 places of their formation, was the effect of some powerful cause, 

 of rare occurrence, such as an earthquake or volcano, which has 

 burst forth and convulsed the inaccessible regions of the south, 

 leaving no other testimonials of the event, than some few frag- 

 ments of ice, scattered at a distance in the Indian ocean. 



Philos, Mag. 



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