Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/649

Rh "Steamer 'India' (Ger.): May 24th, passed two icebergs during a dense fog. Slowed engines until next morning, when fog lifted and found vessel surrounded by icebergs; counted thirty-five of them. The fog shut down again, and was obliged to stop vessel several times. At 10 struck an iceberg and stove two holes in starboard bow. The last ice was seen in latitude 42° 35', longitude 52°, when three bergs were passed."—Ibid., May 31st.

"Steamer 'America' (Ger.), . . . was detained on the Banks and vicinity many hours by fog. June 10th, latitude 42° 30', longitude 50° 36', passed through a regular fleet of icebergs, one of them at least three hundred feet high; . . . weather thick and foggy, and was obliged' to proceed slowly."—Ibid., June 14th.

"Steamer 'State of Nebraska' (Br.) was detained thirty hours on the Banks by dense fog."

"Steamer 'Devonia' (Br.) was detained eighteen hours by dense fog."—Ibid., July 19th.

"Steamer 'Polaria' (Ger.) had strong westerly gales and high head-seas with dense fog nearly all the passage."—Ibid., July 20th.

"Steamer 'Devon' (Br.) sighted a large iceberg on the eastern edge of the banks; thence light winds and fog."—Ibid., July 23d.

"'Abyssinia' left Liverpool June 3d: June 11th, light wind and dense fog, passed several icebergs, engines slowed and stopped; 12th, light winds and dense fog, passed several icebergs; 13th, light southeast winds and fog, passed several icebergs, engines slowed."—New York Maritime Register, June 21st.

The above are only a few of the many instances of steamers encountering fog and ice during the last season, and sustaining more or less damage. It is difficult which to most admire, the skill and seamanship exercised in extricating some of these vessels from difficult and dangerous situations, or the pertinacity with which they continued, month after month, to follow the same track in the face of the reports published day after day in the "Herald" and "Maritime Register," with hardly any intermission, from March to August. It may be replied that the last spring and summer have been exceptional ones for ice, which is doubtless true; but, since 1875, including that year eight seasons, we have had, for the first year, ice down very early; field-ice and bergs were seen in February, and continued into September and October. For 1876, bergs and field-ice seen in the early part of the year, February; and in August, September, and October an immense number of bergs on the Banks and to the northward of them. During the three following years, very few seen; only occasional bergs, including the one seen by the Arizona in November, 1879. In the season of 1880 there was a constant stream of icebergs along the eastern edge of the Grand Bank from March until July, some of them having been seen as far south as 40° latitude. In 1881, occasional bergs; and the ice and fog of the last season are too recent to have been as yet forgotten. Here we have, out of eight seasons, four in which ice was almost certain to be encountered from two to six months in each spring and summer. In those seasons during which very little ice