CHAPTER XLY. 
We continued our progress through a labyrinth of 
ice, sometimes running into a berg, or grazing against 
its edge so close as to carry away a spar or stave a 
quarter-hoat, but still making our way across to the 
Greenland shore. The sea was studded with low 
bergs and water-washed floes, wearing the fantastic 
forms which had surprised us the year before. Some 
were both complicated and graceful, supported gener- 
ally by peduncular bases, which gave them a curi-- 
ous aspect of fra- 
gility. This was 
. evidently due to 
; the action of the 
; r ^ waves at the wa- 
s : ter-line, aided by 
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ - ^ the warmth of the 
: T atmosphere. Some 
of these forms I 
; ; - - ^ have already giv- 
en at the foot of 
chapters; others I group 
1= in the margin. 
I f§ If we suppose a near- 
: ;^ ly symmetrical lump of 
: ice, floEiting with that 
stable equilibrium which 
belongs to its excessive 
submergence, the atmosphere, which has now a tem- 
