We were ordered to take the men off the ice and to take especial care not to be nipped ourselves. We rowed carefully toward the edge of the ice cake, with the light of the searchlights to guide us. We would see where the floe began, when the waves dropped back from it. I've been in Northern seas, but I never saw anything like that. The edge of the ice wasn't smooth and worn away by the waves. It was rough with frost crystals that reached out like fingers grabbing at the things near by. When we came close to the edge some of the men in my boat were scared, and I don't blame them. I'd dipped my hand overboard and the water was warm--and twenty feet away there was that mass of ice! We backed up to the ice cake and took off the men. I was looking over the side of the life boat, and saw those long crystals forming and growing while I watched. They were huge, from two feet long for the largest to three or four inches for the smallest. They reached out and reached out terribly. The stern of the boat was touching the ice, and I saw them reaching for the hull like the tentacles of an octopus. They fastened on and began to grow thicker. We took oars and smashed them, feeling frightened as one is frightened in a nightmare. As fast as we broke them they formed again, and the men on the ice seemed to be rotten slow getting into the boat, though I don't doubt but they were hurrying all they knew how. When they were all aboard we had to work like mad to get clear. The paper went on to expound its own idea of what had happened: