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White Wings Vol I. Fifty Years Of Sail In The New Zealand Trade, 1850 TO 1900

Enormous Iceberg

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This huge berg was about 40 to 50 miles long, with no visible break in it, and about 1000 feet high at the north-east end. The ship passed the south-west end of it at 9 a.m. on a Sunday, and sailed along under its lee till 4 p.m., bright sunshine and (comparatively) warm weather, at an average speed of about 5 knots. We were almost becalmed, only doing two or three knots, so I took a couple of interesting photos., one as it is shown with, the dark cliff in the foreground showing about 100 feet above the water, about twenty minutes later another photo. when this cliff was submerged nearly out of sight, showing the berg was rolling about once "there and back" in 40 to 60 minutes. When you picture there is about four-fifths of the whole berg submerged, and the whole bulk of it was apparently rolling, you can figure out what sort of a semi-circle the bottom and top edge were describing. The sun was melting it, and the water was pouring down in roaring cataracts all day long. —From a photograph and painting by H. N. Burgess.

Enormous Iceberg.

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