The condensed cold
of the air must have imparted these figures to the ice; they were not
external (merely?), but in the ice itself, which otherwise was clear
and transparent.'
Henderson and his party appear to have had much more wading to do than
Olafsen, walking in one instance through a long tract of water up to the
knees. In the deeper recesses of the cave, apparently in the part where
the earlier explorers had found the reticulated ice, they found the
whole floor of the passage covered with thick ice, with so steep a dip
that they sat down and slid forward by their own weight--a most
undignified proceeding for a grave gentleman on a mission from the Bible
Society. On holding their torches close to the floor, they saw down to a
depth of 7 or 8 feet, the ice being as clear as crystal. 'The roof and
sides of the cave were decorated with most superb icicles, crystallised
in every possible form, many of which rivalled in minuteness the finest
zeolites; while from the icy floor rose pillars of the same substance,
assuming all the curious and phantastic shapes imaginable, mocking the
proudest specimens of art, and counterfeiting many well-known objects of
animated nature.
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