Towing icebergs termed "exciting possibility"

Towing icebergs from the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans to watershort coastal areas evidently is not as goofy an idea as it may seem. In fact it's an "exciting possibility," say Dr. Wilford Weeks of the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, N.H., and Dr. William Campbell of the U.S. Geological Survey, Tacoma, Wash. Several countries, particularly Chile, find the concept attractive and are thinking of looking into it in more detail than Weeks and Campbell did in their preliminary assessment (1). Getting fresh water from icebergs is hardly a new idea. In the winter of 1853-54, a ship supplying San Francisco with ice took some from the Baird Glacier in Alaska. From this it was but a short step to towing icebergs, say Weeks and Campbell. Between 1890 and 1900, small icebergs were towed and sailed from Laguna San Rafael, Chile, to Valparaiso and even to Callao, ...