Along the Labrodor Coast

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...depended of course on the habits of the man or woman in charge. CHAPTER VI ICEBERGS AND THE FLOE "I long to see those icebergs vast, With heads all crowned with snow; Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep, --Two hundred fathoms low."--" The Northern Seas," William Hewitt. PERHAPS the most interesting pictures retained in the memory of this Labrador trip are of the icebergs. We first encountered them in the Straits of Belle Isle, and from there north we were rarely out of sight of one or more of them. In size they varied from tiny cakes of ice to great masses as large as a cathedral. When it is remembered that only about one-sixth part of the berg or even less is above water, one can only wonder at, much less estimate, their great bulk. The small bergs are largely floe-bergs, that is, remnants of the ice floe or pack that formed over the surface of the water during the winter. Some are "calves" or fragments split off from the true icebergs, which were themselves broken off from the glaciers of Greenland as they debouched into the sea. Borne along by the arctic currents from the glaciers, many icebergs were stranded in the shallow water of the Labrador coast, while others slowly drifted by outside. The colour of these bergs first calls for our admiration. Of alabaster whiteness, and sparkling in the sun as if beset with diamonds, they are objects of exceeding beauty. In the shadows, in the deep crevasses, and in the caverns carved by the hungry waves, the colour is often of the most intense and translucent blue. Where the water washes them, and they extend out as great subaqueous shelves, the colour changes to a lovely green. These greens and blues are as delicate and exquisite when seen close at hand as when viewed from a dis...