The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume IINordenskiöld, A. E. (Adolf Erik)
History
The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II
Nordenskiöld, A. E. (Adolf Erik)
Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration; Northeast Passage; Vega (Ship)
1. _Icebergs._ The true icebergs have a height above the surface of
the water rising to 100 metres. They often ground in a depth of 200
to 300 metres, and have thus sometimes a cross section of up to 400,
perhaps 500 metres. Their area may amount to several square
kilometres. Such enormous blocks of ice are projected into the North
Polar Sea only from the glaciers of Greenland, and according to
Payer's statement, from those of Franz-Josef Land also; but not, as
some authors (GEIKIE, BROWN, and others) appear to assume and have
shown by incorrect ideal drawings, from glaciers which project into
the sea and there terminate with a perpendicular evenly-cut border,
but from very uneven glaciers which always enter the sea in the
bottoms of deep fjords, and are split up into icebergs long before
they reach it. It is desirable that those who write on the origin of
icebergs, should take into consideration the fact that icebergs are
only formed at places where a violent motion takes place in the mass
of the ice, which again within a comparatively short time results in
the excavation of the deep ice-fjord. The largest iceberg, which, so
far as I know, has been _measured_ in that part of the Polar Sea
which lies between Spitzbergen and Wrangel Land, is one which
Barents saw at Cape Nassau on the 17/7th August 1596. It was sixteen
fathoms high, and had grounded in a depth of thirty-six fathoms. In
the South Polar Sea icebergs occur in great numbers and of enormous
size. If we may assume that they have an origin similar to those of
Greenland, it is probable that round the South Pole there is an
extensive continent indented by deep fjords.
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