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VOYAGE OF THE ICEBERG: THE STORY OF THE ICEBERG THAT SANK THE TITANIC

Richard Brown.

Toronto, James Lorimer, c1983.
152pp, cloth, $16.95.
ISBN 0-88862-656-8.


Grades 10 and up.
Reviewed by Yoskyl Webb.

Volume 12 Number 2
1984 March


In the Voyage of the Iceberg, Dr. Brown casts a new slant on the Titanic story, recounting the scientific formation and growth of the iceberg that sank the Titanic, as well as interspersing details of Titanic's construction. He vividly demonstrates the almost inevitability of collision between iceberg and floating craft in the Grand Banks area at that time. The details of the sinking of the Titanic are well enough documented to support the use of the title term, "the Iceberg."

Dr. Brown touches on the search for the North-West Passage, whaling, the seal hunt, and arctic characters, and heightens the reader's awareness of the natural world of the Arctic, with enthusiastic, accurate, yet poetic description. The author might well have added a chapter on contemporary detailed iceberg monitoring and the actual physical towing away of icebergs headed for collision with ocean oil rigs.

The illustrations should have been individually captioned rather than noted at the end. The lone, uncaptioned map leaves the reader to guess that it indicates the collision course between berg and ship. Photographs on page 16 and 84 need some idea of scale.

This book should be on the bibliography of all ocean oil drilling rig designers. It is well worth the purchase by public libraries and by secondary schools where A Night to Remember is studied, as such a view of the catastrophe could only have been written by a marine biologist with an eloquent pen.


Yoskyl Webb, Sutherland S. S., North Vancouver, BC.
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