Remarks on several icebergs which have been met with in unusually low latitudes in the southern hemisphere
The journals of the ships belonging to the East India Company, the author observes, during the whole of the last century, contain no accounts of icebergs having been seen in the course of their navigation in the southern hemisphere, although several of these ships proceeded into the parallels of lat...
| Published in: | Abstracts of the Papers Printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London |
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The Royal Society
1833
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspl.1815.0386 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspl.1815.0386 |
| Summary: | The journals of the ships belonging to the East India Company, the author observes, during the whole of the last century, contain no accounts of icebergs having been seen in the course of their navigation in the southern hemisphere, although several of these ships proceeded into the parallels of latitude 40°, 41°, and 42° south; but during the last two years, it appears that icebergs have occasionally been met with by several ships in their passage, very near the Cape of Good Hope, between the latitudes of 36° and 39°. The particulars relating to these observations are detailed in the paper. The most remarkable occurred in the voyage of the brig Eliza, from Antwerp, bound to Batavia, which on the 28th of April, 1828, fell in with five icebergs in latitude 37° 31' south, longitude 18° 17' east of Greenwich. They had the appearance of church steeples, of a height from 250 to 300 feet; and the sea broke so violently against these enormous masses, that it was at first suspected they might be fixed upon some unknown shoal, until, on sounding, no bottom could be discovered. It is remarkable that in general, icebergs appear to be met with in low latitudes, nearly at the same period of the year, namely, in April or May, in both the northern and southern hemispheres, although the seasons are reversed in these two divisions of the globe. In order to account for the origin and accretion of the southern icebergs, the author thinks it probable that there exists a large tract of land near the antarctic circle, somewhere between the meridian of London and the twentieth degree of east longitude; whence these icebergs have been carried in a north and north-north-easterly direction, by the united forces of current, winds, and waves, prevailing from south-south-west and south-west. Bouvet’s and Thompson’s Islands are not of sufficient magnitude, and Sandwich Land and Kerguelen’s Island are too remote to be the source of the icebergs lately observed in the vicinity of the Cape. From their unprecedented descent during the last two ... |
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