Fred C. Seim, age 12, of St. Louis, Missouri, for his question: 

Are icebergs of any use?

All we hear about icebergs seems to be bad news. They sneak down into our shipping lanes from polar regions and menace even great ocean going liners. From this human point of view, an iceberg is indeed dangerous to life and property. It can collide and crash its immense weight through a ship. And most of its jagged, massive bulk is below the water, deceitfully concealed from sight. Nowadays, fortunately we have radar and other recording equipment to detect icebergs from afar. We can, for a moment, forget their menace to human interests and consider their role in the scheme of nature.

Icebergs are chunks from polar glaciers and glaciers are compressed masses of frozen snow. Icy snowf fields begin as fresh water deposits of rain and snow from the clouds. Icebergs, then, are chunks of fresh water ice. They drift helplessly on ocean currents into warmer latitudes, melting as they go. Every year, the salty sea grows saltier and every year icebergs dilute it with a zillion tons of fresh water. Marine biologists have found swarms of sea creatures following the icebergs and thriving in this cool, diluted water. Soon this fresh water mingles and loses itself, but next season the drifting icebergs add more.