EXPLANATION, 
419 
with evident glee over tlie peaks and ravines of their 
familiar element. It was a magnificent pile of frost- 
work. But these crystal palaces of the ice, like every 
thing else under this northern sky, deceive one strange- 
ly in their apparent size. "We thought, when we an- 
chored, that the berg was a small one ; yet we coursed 
more than the third of a mile in almost a direct line 
before we reached its further edge. 
The pure surfaces which we traveled over were stud- 
ded with irregular blocks of ice, evidently once de- 
tached and cemented on again. They varied in size 
and shape from a boy's playing-marble to a haystack ; 
and by their interesting distribution suggested most 
obtrusively the question of almost every Arctic trav- 
eler, how such fragments find their place on the pla- 
teau surfaces of the icebercrs. I had answered the 
question for myself before ; but I was glad to be con- 
firmed by the observations I made in the course of this 
