"But the South Polar pollywog is then only a theory?"
"Well, yes—so far," admitted the professor; "but it is reserved for me to gain the honor of positively proving the strange creature's existence."
"And if there should be no such thing in existence?" asked Frank.
"Then I shall write a book denouncing Professor Tapper," said the professor, with an air of finality, and turning away to examine the water through a pair of binoculars.
On moved the ships and at last, early one day, Captain Barrington called the boys on deck and, with a wave of the hand, indicated a huge white cliff, or palisade, which rose abruptly from the green water and seemed to stretch to infinity in either direction.
"The Great Barrier," he said, simply.
"Which will be our home for almost a year," added Captain Hazzard.
The boys gazed in wonder at the mighty wall of snow and ice as it glittered in the sunlight. It was, indeed, a Great Barrier. At the point where they lay it rose to a height of 130 feet or more from the water, which was filled with great detached masses of ice. Further on it seemed to sweep to even greater heights.
This was the barrier at which Lieutenant Wilkes, on his unlucky expedition, had gazed. The mighty wall that Shackleton and Scott, the Englishmen, had scaled and then fought their way to "furthest South" beyond. The names of many other explorers, French, English, Danish, and German, rushed into the boys' minds as they gazed.
Were they destined to penetrate the great mysteries that lay beyond it? Would their airship be successful in wresting forth the secret of the great white silence?