Harvard Law Student Tells of Experiences With Icebergs

The following article was written for the Crimson by Leo Shubow 1L, former Yeoman on the oceanographic service of the International Ice Patrol.

Blowing up gigantic icebergs, warning ships of their presence and position on the treacherous Grand Banks, and keeping track of the exact position of any where from 50 to 100 of these engines of destruction is the duty of the International Observation and Ice Patrol Service.

On April 4, 1912 the S. S. Titanic struck an iceberg on her maiden trip and sunk with the loss of 1500 lives. The British Government invited the nations of the world to a conference held at London where an agreement was drafted and later signed by which all the powers agreed to help defray the expenses of an International Ice Patrol in proportion to their respective shipping.

The duties of the patrol were assigned to the United States Revenue Cutter service. Since then with the exception of the War years 1917 and 1918, the patrol has been maintained by the Coast Guard service.

Two Cutters In Use

The two cutters, the Tampa and Modoc, alternate in patrolling the ice region for 15 successive days, and at the end of that time one patrol vessel is relieved by the other which rests in Halifax. The oceanographic staff, however, is obliged to spend over six months without sight of land, changing from one cutter to the other by lifeboat. The duties of this staff are numerous and consist of broadcasting radio reports to all vessels in the vicinity, making charts of the behavior of the bergs and of studying general oceanic conditions. The Green-Bigelow bottle, invented by H. B. Bigelow '01, of the Peabody museum, is used extensively in the study of water at different depths.

Grand Banks Dangerous

The Grand Banks are one of the most treacherous spots in the world. Sudden fogs blanket the ocean for days, the sea is calm one hour out of every 360, and the huge green ice blocks are a constant threat to the fishing smacks which roam the Banks for weeks at a time.

These icebergs rise in the Baffin Bay region, far north in the Arctic. Wellknown Arctic explorers declare that it takes about 100 years or more for these huge masses to form in the glacier fields, and it is because these bergs are so solidly formed in rock-like strata that it is so difficult to demolish them. It takes the bergs about one year to drift down from Baffin Bay to the Northern area of the Banks. Their length at this time averages about five city blocks, while their height runs from 200 to 300 feet. It was calculated that there are usually some 100,000 tons of ice above the water, and since the bergs ride about seven-eights under water, the total weight of each is about 800,000 tons. Icebergs have a most mystifying habit of seeking cold pockets in the ocean. When a berg is traveling South at its serene and prescribed rate of half a knot an hour, it will suddenly change its course and will head direct for the only cold pocket within many miles. This is known to the experts as rhigotropism.

The methods whereby an iceberg is slowly disintegrated and destroyed by nature are varied. The pounding of the heavy seas, rain, and the warm Gulf Stream which meets the Labrador cur- rent on the Banks, all contribute to the gradual erosion of the huge ice mountains. Warm heavy fogs rising from the mixture of warm and cold water are a big factor in the slow decay of the bergs.

When an iceberg arrives at the Grand Banks it does one of three things. It either drifts off towards the East where it is destroyed by the Gulf Stream or drifts aground, if it is a particularly large berg, on the Banks themselves, where it is pounded to pieces by the waves. Often a berg will skirt the Banks and drift southward into the Transatlantic shipping lanes where it becomes a menace to liners and merchantmen, and provides work for the Ice Patrol.

T. N. T. is the weapon employed by the Patrol to hasten the end of an iceberg's life. If the berg has a ledge upon which a man may land, a hole is chopped with an ice axe and the charge with a time-fuse attached, is deposited