It grew colder, although I can truly say, so well were we provided against the weather, that neither of us had suffered, and we continued to sit on deck in our top coats without inconvenience. Torrence made half a turn in the screw controlling our elevation, and we rose slightly higher, as there were dangerous looking inequalities in the ice ahead. We also moderately increased our speed, keeping, however, low enough, and running with just such headway as would enable us to see to the best advantage the formations below and around us. Presently it began to snow, and the ice field became covered with a tattered sheet, the uneven protuberances sticking through in dirty patches. But it was only a summer shower, which we ran out of in a dozen or twenty miles, leaving the sea of frozen waves and hummocks bare again. Then we came to floes, or extended areas of ice that had not packed, wind-driven into the solid masses behind, but were still shifting about with the current, undecided as to their future course. The crunching and roaring of these masses was horrible. Detached areas, miles in extent, would rush at each other with Titanic power, and meeting, rend the air with deafening crashes like the wrecking of a thousand trains. Next came the piling up into strange, fantastic shapes. Pyramids, towers, and grim fortifications would threaten each other for a minute, and then slowly advancing, meet with a report like thunder, splitting the air from earth to heaven, and melt into each other, to be again squeezed and piled into new designs. It was an awful, yet fascinating sight. But the worst had not come. Onward we swept over this crunching and grinding world, roaring in agony to free itself from the embrace of the demon Cold, which was slowly but surely stiffening it into immovable forms. And as we advanced, the thundering of the under world grew less, for there was no more movement. The forts, the towers, and the pyramids had become fixed and silent, and a city of weird architecture followed. A city of frozen monuments, deserted streets, of isolated villas, cathedrals, parks, and gardens, lakes of dazzling whiteness, turreted battlements with mounted guns commanding open spaces, and distant rivers threading the land beyond. But a deathlike silence reigned. It was a marvelous change, but a greater still was coming. Looking far to the north we observed that these singular ice forms were growing in size and splendor, so that it seemed advisable to rise a little higher to avoid a collision. But they grew. The forts became lofty houses; the houses cathedrals, and the cathedrals great ragged mountains of ice, with pinnacles reaching skyward. * * * * *