Sheron Medros, age 8 of Cincinnati, Ohio, for his question:

Are icebergs frozen water?

The icebergs that pester the shipping lanes start out as pure white snow flakes falling in polar regions. Those that fall in the north pole region pack down into the great glaciers that cover most of Greenland. Being made of purest snow, they become frozen fresh water.

These glaciers are forever slipping down the slopes of the central mountains towards the sea. From time to time during the warmer weather, chunks of the huge glaciers break away and drift off on the ocean currents. These ire the icebergs that pester our north Atlantic shipping lanes. They are made of frozen fresh water ands like all icebergs' as they melt they add quantities of fresh water to the salt seas around them. In time this fresh water is churned up and blended with the salty sea, but for a while the water around a melting iceberg contains much fresh water from the melting ice.