* * * * *
And now the scene grew more terrible with each mile of advance. Ages of freezing and thawing, accumulations of snow and ice, had produced a spectacle more awful than words can picture. A sea of mountains and valleys; of cañons black in eternal night. A sea of silence. A sea of death.
* * * * *
But I will not dwell upon the horrors that separate the known from the unknown. The Palæocrystic is simply an unexplored belt of ice surrounding the poles. Indeed it is not known to be unbroken, or to be of equal severity throughout. It might be termed a ribbon of ice mountains, which has been ages in forming, and which probably will not average more than fifty miles in breadth, and at some points, doubtless much narrower. Beyond it we came upon free ice again, and further reached the open polar sea.
Here was a marked change in the temperature, and as the air currents were from the north, the frozen area had little effect. Our thermometer showed a few degrees above freezing, and a tendency to rise still higher.
We now felt that we were fairly launched into an unknown world. A placid ocean stretched beneath to an unexplored horizon.
"Now!" exclaimed Torrence with enthusiasm; "if there are any discoveries to be made, we ought soon to make them."
Taking out a pair of field glasses we searched the skyline from the upper deck.
"No land in sight!" said Torrence; "but if I am not mistaken, yonder is a flock of wild geese, leading our course, and not more than half a mile ahead.
"They might be petrels!" I suggested.