DECEPTIVE DISTANCES. 
115 
The general shapes were those of the symrnetricai 
solids, cubes, rhombs, and wedges, with surfaces pre- 
senting all the varieties of terrene configuration; hut 
these were of the recently disrupted ice. In the oldei 
structures, where the degrading actions of the sea and 
air were aided by constantly recurring fractures, and 
with these constantly shifting centres of flotation, the 
changes had a more picturesque character ; archways, 
natural bridges, terraces, and spiral ledges, from which 
the long icicles hung in grotesque and sparkling va- 
riety. 
Sometimes, while I was studying the escarped faces 
of these bergs, we would enter little caves with shelv- 
ing bottoms of pure blue, and, strange to say, teeming 
with crustacean life. I see by my journal that on one 
occasion, while trying, in company with my friend, 
Mr. Murdaugh, to net some of these misplaced ento- 
mostraca, I brought up a couple of forms of beroe, both 
. with ciliate margins, apparently quite at home upon 
the pure surface of this icy basin. 
In the course of our observations upon the differ- 
ent forms of ice that surrounded us, we realized some 
additional proofs of the deceptive character of Arctic 
distances. That aerial perspective, which is with us 
so palpable an element in the composition of a land- 
scape, was scarcely to be noticed, except as tinting the 
background with a deeper transparency of blue. In 
the estimate of both altitude and horizontal distance,, 
the iceberg was a complete puzzle. I have often 
started for a berg fast in the land floe, seemingly 
within musket-shot, and, after walking for nearly an 
hour, found its apparent position unchanged. 
On one occasion, when engaged with our command- 
er in an attempt to inspect a low mass of ice covered 
