416 THE GERMAN AllCTIO EXPEDITION. 



and mouth, wliilst the very cold but slightly damp air is 

 exhaled with perfect comfort. 



It is very difficult to keep a straight course when the 

 snowy surface is covered with a peculiar layer of low fog, 

 which, however, seldom happens in the spring, as in a 

 violent fall of snow nothing can be done but by the 

 compass, and this tiring way of proceeding can often 

 only be employed when an iceberg is for a moment 

 visible, as offering a direct object of sight. 



The great inequality in the warmth of the atmosphere, 

 or unequal thickness of the atmospheric layers above the 

 ice, produces the strangest distortions of the land, by 

 means of refraction, causing objects still below the 

 horizon to be distinctly seen. 



During our voyage in the pack-ice in 1869, we saw some 

 most astonishing phenomena — column-shaped groups of 

 ice towering aloft, often resembling the ruins of a town ; 

 basins of water shut in by the ice, all of which were 

 below the edge of the horizon ; and once a vessel, which 

 seemed to stand as four, one above another. 



Still more interesting is the effect upon a land picture. 

 Now appears a high, remote island, wdthout any dis- 

 figuration of its contour, apparently set up on a plinth at 

 least 900 feet high ; or a completely dome-shaped moun- 

 tain is turned into a square, the outlines of the ridge 

 assuming a dreadfully wild character, every top threaten- 

 ing to fall over ; or the distorted picture acquires a rapid 

 motion, growing as high again ; or creating the delusive 

 picture of a land which certainly existed, but not where 

 we expected to find it {Fata Morgana). Thus, in Lat. "1 7° 

 we for a whole day were advancing to a land, the 

 individual features of which — such as snow-furrows and 



