SHAKING THE ATLANTIC SAFE

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3717, 2 November 1926, Page 2

SHAKING THE ATLANTIC SAFE

CONQUERING THE ICEBERG PERIL Shortly after the disaster to the Titanic in April, 1912, when on its maiden voyage the great liner was sunk, with the loss of 1,500 lives, by colliding with a huge iceberg off the Grand Bank of Newfoundland, the chief maritime nations combined to establish an International Ice Patrol in the North Atlantic. The patrol vessels arc supplied by the United States Government, and the expense is shared by fourteen nations, Great Britain contributing 30 per cent, of the expenditure.

This patrol locates and, where possible. destroys the icebergs moving south from the great Greenland glaciers, their disintegration being brought about by high explosives. When an iceberg is sighted its position and direction of movement are determined, and wireless warnings are broadcast so that ships near the danger zone may alter their course so as to avoid the danger. So vigilant is the ice patrol that scarcely an iceberg enters the steam-

ship routes without being seen, and though occasionally a vessel passes perilously near a berg, no lives have been lost by the collision of a ship with an iceberg since the patrol was established fourteen years ago. Now and again an iceberg is sighted so huge that even many charges of T.N.T. have little effect on it, and when this is the case a patrol vessel keeps in touch with it, continually attacking it with explosives and sending out wireless warnings, until the successive explosions, combined with the thawing effect of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, bring about its destruction, sometimes as long as sixweeks elapsing between the time it was sighted and its final disappearance beneath the waters of the Atlantic.

The iceberg season runs from the end of March to the end of August, and tiiis year, owing to the comparatively mild weather in the vicinity of the Greenland glaciers, the bergs broke off early and have been numerous. As T.N.T. and other high explosives were in some cases ineffective, it was proposed by Dr H. F. Barnes, of M'Giil University, to throw thermit, a mixture of iron oxides with powdered aluminium, which, when ignited, produces a temperature of about 3,ooodeg C. Dr Barnes found that the big changes of temperature set up by alternations of day and night were very effective in breaking up big icebergs, and such changes he was able to produce- artificially by means of thermit. He has employed this method with much success bn icebergs off the Grand Bank, and in all probability the ice patrols will use thermit next season wherever the size of a berg enables it to survive the powerful explosives that disintegrate those of smaller dimensions. —‘ Observer.’