Real Climate Records

The icebergs of the south (says the London ” Globe “) differ from those of the north as

the Antarctic summer from that of the Arctic.

In a region where the summer temperature rarely reaches above freezing point, where the

attenuated nature of the southern continent allows free play to the polar currents, and where the sun fails to bring out anything that might be called a spring or summer flower, it follows that the ice conditions are vastly different from those of the Northern Hemisphere, where at a corresponding latitude summer clothes the land with flowers, and fills the air with innumerable bees.

These widely different conditions are easily soon by a passing comparison of the northern berg with the southern; the former speedily becomes pinnacled and grotesque as it journeys south, while the latter retains its original tabular form in very low latitudes. It is only when the southern berg reaches a distance north where the sun at last begins to make his heat felt that it thaws and presents the great needle points and guttering Cascades so frequently soon within the Arctic circle.

This difference of temperature between the summer of the Antarctic and that of the Arctic is

due to the fact that, while the latter region is a polar basin, surrounded by vast tracts of land

which return the summer heat, the former is a comparatively small tract of land in a tremendous expanse of water, which parts with its heat very quickly.

The home and origin of the southern berg are a matter full of romantic interest. In 1774 Captain

Cook sailed down into the unknown Antarctic regions, and after terrible hardships reached a

spot where he saw a snow-white brightness in the clouds to the south, and he knew he was near the ice fields. Four hours later he was stopped by a great ice barrier in lat. 71′ south, when the

mountains of ice, rising one above the other, tier upon tier, into the distance, were lost in the

clouds of the polar sky.

The desolate grandeur of that icy coast appalled the great navigator, and seeing no possibility of pushing to the pole over those impassable mountains, he contented himself with having gone further than anyone had over been before, and, he thought, as far an any man could go. He speaks of vast glaciers descending from the interior, and of ice islands and floats near the coast; and from his remarks it is easily seen that he had found the home of the southern bergs.

The glaciers, coming slowly down from the interior, being launched between the mountain

sides of this ice-bound, continental coast, produced the tabular icebergs by snapping off from

time to time at their extremities, and these, once set free, sailed northward in due time on the

ocean currents.

This barrier discovered by Cook was evidently an outstanding coastline of the Antarctic continent, for, more than half a century later, Sir James Ross, in the Erebus and the Terror, found a similar barrier, probably continuous with that of Cook, at a far higher latitude of 78* south.

Here at the foot of the great volcanoes Erebus and Terror, so named after his ships, Ross found a further home of the berg. This coast of Victoria Land was a grand scene of glaciers launching their gigantic ends into the sea. From the coastline, where the walls of ice stood as sheer cliffs hundreds of feet high, the mountains inland ranged one over the other, culminating in the volcanic peaks 12,000ft. high.

And down the grooves of these mountains came the slow-moving glaciers to people to southern

seas with the floating dangers which render exploration there a thing of intense risk to the

boldest and moat skilful navigator. Ross says this ice barrier is ” perhaps more than 1000ft. thick a mighty and wonderful object.”

As the ice barrier, so the bergs. When they are set free they are solid fragments of the parent

glacier, with tops like billiard tables and sides like cliffs, often measuring as much as 200ft. in height and several miles in extent. They maintain their tabular character generally, and their

vast size, until they either collide and break up or suffer a thaw in low latitudes. In the former alternative they supply the material for the floating icepacks, and in the latter they assume strange shapes, turreted, pinnacled, and undermined, as, like glistening fairy palaces, they

slowly dissolve beneath the sunlight.

Cook mentions several interesting bergs with which he made acquaintance. One was 50ft. high, and half a mile in circumference. He says: “It was flat at the top, and its sides rose in a perpen-

dicular direction, against which the sea broke exceedingly high.” This berg must have been

from a barrier not very far south, for the further such a barrier is from the pole the thinner the ice becomes.

In regard to this point it may be mentioned that in 1893 Larsen found in Graham’s Land n

barrier which, being in a comparatively low latitude, was only from 20ft. to 60ft. high, while

that discovered by Ross in latitude 78° S. was very much higher. D’Urville, the gallant French explorer, met with bergs in latitude 59° S.

It would appear from this that their place of origin was an ice barrier oven further south than that found by Sir James Ross. The Dundee whalers in 1892-3 also saw bergs over 200ft. high. These, too, in all probability came from a barrier which Dr. Murray is of opinion faces an open sea for some distance south of Ross’s Ultima Thule; and, if there be an ice coast still further

south, it is vaguely hinted at by Mr. Bull’s measurements in 1896 of a berg 600ft. high, which at first he mistook for an island.

A thaw among Antarctic bergs is not often met with even in the height of summer; but to show

that such a thing does occur occasionally the experience of Ross may be mentioned. On one

occasion when he was considerably within the Antarctic Circle the thermometer stood at 12°,

but in the bergs all around there were evidences that they had suffered a partial thaw some time previously, for great icicles hung from their sides.

On another occasion outside the Circle he saw a complete thaw attended by sounds like the discharge of heavy artillery, as the huge masses split and fell apart. But, although the bergs are seldom melted in high latitudes, they have another way of disposing of themselves; they run into one another and break up into small junks, which strew the sea for miles around. The dense icepack thus formed is one of the greatest dangers to navigation in those regions; indeed, the struggles of man with the everlasting icepacks form the main part of the history of South Polar exploration.

In his first voyage Ross forced his way through a pack 200 miles in breadth, and in the following year he found this same pack increased to 800 miles. On this occasion it cost him just eight weeks of the short southern summer to force his way through. Part of the way he proceeded in a novel fashion, with the Erebus lashed to one side of a small berg and the

Terror to the other. This method succeeded well, for the berg caught both the wind and the deeper currents, and forced a way among the lesser junks of ice, but when a storm arose some time later this method of procedure had to be abandoned. Then the fragments of ice

in ceaseless commotion carried away the rudders of both ships, but after innumerable dan-

gers and hardships, including being constantly butted about by the floating ice like a football

in a scrimmage, he eventually gained the other side, where he found a clear sea.

It was on this same voyage that the Erebus and the Terror collided in the night while trying to avoid a berg immediately ahead. The Erebus, being disabled, was for some time in great danger of being altogether wrecked upon the cliffs of the berg, but at last succeeded in drawing off.

D’Urville’s gallant battles with the icepack were worthy of that heroic Frenchman. On his first voyage he entered a dense pack in lat. 63° S., the whole field glistening like alabaster in the bright sunlight. He tried to force his ship through, but got hemmed in during the night, when, to make matters worse, a gale arose, and he describes his ships as being like two stags in a high-walled park, pursued by relentless dogs in the shape of fragments of ice.

The snow came on and the ships were butted and shaken by the battery of floating iceblocks till

he had to choose between being jammed and snowed up in the thick of it or making a dash for

the open sea. Choosing the latter course, he cut his way out with levers and saws at the rate of a

mile in 10 hours.

The American Wilkes also suffered severely in the icepacks, one of his ships, the Peacock, being completely icebound in latitude 66° S. It was at this time that he found some boulders on the top of a berg and guessed they had come direct from the great Antarctic Continent. In the same latitude Svend Foyn’s expedition in 1896 was completely icebound for a fortnight in a pack 500 miles in breadth.

The dangers of these belts of ice, coupled with the terrible risk of running into bergs in the

heavy fogs which frequently obscure the southern seas, make the conditions of South Polar exploration almost overwhelming, even for a modern ship equipped with steam and other recent advantages. What the difficulties must have been to Ross, who had to explore without steam, can be imagined.

And when one thinks of Captain Cook, who had not even an ice-fortified ship like those of Ross, one feels bound to accord to him the title of the greatest navigator the world has seen.