Scarcely any of them, hurrying out of the warm cabins, had thought of the necessity of heavy wraps, and the bitter cold of the outer air perceptibly chilled their blood.
Involuntarily, even while they were staring about them, they hurried up and down the deck to keep themselves warm.
The officers puzzled their brains over the peculiar formation of this ice-encompassed lake.

It seemed as if a great ice mountain had sunk down from the midst of its companions, and had left this awful hole.

This, however, was impossible.

No law of nature would account for such a disappearance of an ice mountain.

Mr.Gibbs thought, under some peculiar circumstances, a mass of ice might have broken away and floated from its surroundings, and that afterwards, increased in size, it had floated back again, and, too large to re-enter the opening it had made, had closed up the frozen walls of this lonely lake, accessible only to those who should rise up into it from the sea.