1835: It's not just ships that tow icebergs, but the opposite can happen, too. A British expedition in the Arctic got stuck on an iceberg, which proceeded to get blown around the ocean.

It was perhaps the first time that an iceberg had the honor conferred upon it of towing a British ship, although we know that the direct contrary was once in contemplation, of towing the icebergs by British ships to the tropics, for the purpose of diffusing their refrigerating power on the countries situated between them.

Mid 1800s: According to the Encyclopedia of Antartica, small icebergs were towed from southern Chile up to Valparaiso as part of the brewery supply chain. A Chilean researcher said, "The icebergs were towed by ships of the conventional type. Sometimes the icebergs were supplied with sails to utilize the prevailing winds. The ice was used for refrigerating purposes in the breweries and was generally substituted for artificial ice." Apparently, the business continued until about the turn of the century.

August 22, 1863: Scientific American informs us of not one, but two, different schemes in one short article. "A genius in New Bedford is fitting up a steamer for the purpose of towing icebergs to India, where they sell for six cents a pound," the magazine wrote. "Another proposes to do still better--to fit a screw in the iceberg itself, and thus avoid the expense of ship-building. Cute chaps, both of 'em."

June 8, 1898: Printers Ink, an advertising rag, contains an announcement of an iceberg towing related hoax out of Colorado. The magazine reports:

The Mining and Industrial Reporter (Denver) has a little joke. In its February issue it printed the announcement of a concern called the Klondike and Cuba Ice Towing and Anti-Yellow Fever Company, supposed to be engaged in towing icebergs and collecting the gold dust believed to be in them as they melted. It was a hoax, intended as a caricature of Klondike advertisements; but the Reporter announces with glee that it received a largo number of inquiries and applications.

March 9, 1914: A short notice in The Washington Times describes a new iceberg towing operation being advertised in area papers. "The Northern Berg Ice Company is planning to tow icebergs into Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, exhibit them excursion steamers, and then dynamite the bergs into small pieces for market. No names of interested capitalists have as yet been made public, and the advertisements came as a surprise to ice dealers, who say the scheme is not practical."

Early 1940s: The British try to build a massive ship out of wood pulp and ice. They call it Project Habakkuk and it never really succeeds.

1949: John Isaacs (above) is the godfather of the modern iceberg towing movement. In his first seminar at Scripps Oceanographic Institute in 1949, he suggested the enterprise and expanded on his original speculations for years afterwards. I particularly like his 1956 version in which he suggested "capturing an eight-billion ton iceberg, 20 miles long, 3000 feet wide, and 1000 feet deep in the Antarctic and towing it up to San Clemente Island off San Diego in a matter of 200 days." The way Isaacs saw it, the energy required to guide the berg up two continents was a mere fraction of the energy required to desalinate it, which was itself a popular idea for the third quarter of the 20th century.