"Did you hear the result of the American expedition?" asked Melick.
"Yes," replied the doctor. "Wilkes pretends to have found a continent, but his account of it makes it quite evident to my mind that he saw nothing but ice. I believe that Wilkes's antarctic continent will some day be penetrated by ships, which will sail for hundreds of miles farther south. All that is wanted is a favorable season. But mark the coincidence between Ross's report and More's manuscript. This must have been written at least three years ago, and the writer could not have known anything about Ross's discoveries. Above all, he could not have thought of those two volcanoes unless he had seen them."
"But these volcanoes mentioned by More are not the Erebus and Terror, are they?" said Lord Featherstone.
"Of course not; they are on the other side of the world."
"The whole story," said Melick, "may have been written by one of Ross's men and thrown overboard. If I'd been on that expedition I should probably have written it to beguile the time."
"Oh yes," said the doctor; "and you would also have manufactured the papyrus and the copper cylinder on board to beguile the time."
"I dare say the writer picked up that papyrus and the copper cylinder in China or Japan, and made use of it in this way."
"Where do you make out the position of More's volcanoes?" asked Featherstone.
"It is difficult to make it out accurately," said the doctor. "More gives no data. In fact he had none to give. He couldn't take any observations."
"The fact is," said Melick, "it's not a sailor's yarn at all. No sailor would ever express himself in that way. That's what struck me from the first. It has the ring of a confounded sensation-monger all through."