sample essays of IELTS

37 Icebergs

Icebergs are among natures most spectacular creations, and yet most
people have never seen one. A vague air of mystery envelops them. They
come into being ----- somewhere ------in faraway, frigid waters, amid
thunderous noise and splashing turbulence, which in most cases no one
hears or sees. They exist only a short time and then slowly waste away
just as unnoticed.

Objects of sheerest beauty they have been called. Appearing in an
endless variety of shapes, they may be dazzlingly white, or they may be
glassy blue, green or purple, tinted faintly of in darker hues. They are
graceful, stately, inspiring ----- in calm, sunlight seas.

But they are also called frightening and dangerous, and that they are ---
- in the night, in the fog, and in storms. Even in clear weather one is
wise to stay a safe distance away from them. Most of their bulk is
hidden below the water, so their underwater parts may extend out far
beyond the visible top. Also, they may roll over unexpectedly, churning
the waters around them.

Icebergs are parts of glaciers that break off, drift into the water,
float about awhile, and finally melt. Icebergs afloat today are made of
snowflakes that have fallen over long ages of time. They embody snows
that drifted down hundreds, or many thousands, or in some cases maybe a
million years ago. The snows fell in polar regions and on cold
mountains, where they melted only a little or not at all, and so
collected to great depths over the years and centuries.

As each years snow accumulation lay on the surface, evaporation and
melting caused the snowflakes slowly to lose their feathery points and
become tiny grains of ice. When new snow fell on top of the old, it too
turned to icy grains. So blankets of snow and ice grains mounted layer
upon layer and were of such great thickness that the weight of the upper
layers compressed the lower ones. With time and pressure from above, the
many small ice grains joined and changed to larger crystals, and
eventually the deeper crystals merged into a solid mass of ice.