ng over edges
and peaks, blazing on broad masses, shimmering through semi-transparent
cliffs, and casting soft grey shadows everywhere--was inexpressibly
beautiful, while the whole, looming through a thin golden haze, seemed
to be of gigantic proportions.

It seemed as if the region of ice around them must at one time have been
in tremendous convulsions, but the Professor assured them that this was
not the case, that the formation of crevasses and those confused heaps
of ice called _seracs_ was a slow and prolonged process. "Doubtless,"
he said, "you have here and there the wild rush of avalanches, and
suchlike convulsions, but the rupture of the great body of the ice is
gradual. A crevasse is an almost invisible crack at first. It yawns
slowly and takes a long time to open out to the dimensions and confusion
which you see around."

"What are those curious things?" asked Nita, pointing to some forms
before her.

"They look like giant mushrooms," said Captain Wopper.

"They are ice-tables," answered Antoine.

"Blocks of stone on the top of cones of ice," said the Professor.
"Come, we will go near and examine one."

The object in question was well suited to cause surprise, for it was
found to be an enormous flat mass of rock, many tons in weight, perched
on a pillar of ice and bearing some resemblance to a table with a
central leg.

"Now," said Captain Wopper emphatically, "that _is_ a puzzler. How did
it ever get up there?"

"I have read of such tables," said Lawrence.

"They are the result of the sun's action, I believe."

"Oh, it's all very well, Lawrence," said Lewis, with a touch of sarcasm,
"to talk in a vague way about the sun's action, but it's quite plain,
even to an unphilosophical mind like mine, that the sun can't lift a
block of stone some tons in weight and clap it on the top of a pillar of
ice about ten feet high."

"Nevertheless the sun has done it," returned Lawrence. "Am I not right
Professor?"

The man of science, who had listened with a bland smile on his broad
countenance, admitted that Lawrence was right.

"At first," he said, "that big stone fell from the cliffs higher up the
valley, and it has now been carried down thus far by the ice. During
its progress the sun has been shining day by day and melting the surface
of the ice all round, with the exception of that part which was covered
by the rock. Thus the general level of the ice has been lowered and the
protected portion