Captain Len Guy admirably combined boldness and prudence in his command of his ship. He never passed to leeward of an iceberg, if the distance did not guarantee the success of any manœuvre whatsoever that might suddenly become necessary. He was familiar with all the contingencies of ice-navigation, and was not afraid to venture into the midst of these flotillas of drifts and packs. That day he said to me,—
“Mr. Jeorling, this is not the first time that I have tried to penetrate into the Polar Sea, and without success. Well, if I made the attempt to do this when I had nothing but presumption as to the fate of the Jane to go upon, what shall I not do now that presumption is changed into certainty?”
“I understand that, captain, and of course your experience of navigation in these waters must increase our chances of success.”
“Undoubtedly. Nevertheless, all that lies beyond the fixed icebergs is still the Unknown for me, as it is for other navigators.”
“The Unknown! No, not absolutely, captain, since we possess the important reports of Weddell, and, I must add, of Arthur Pym also.”
“Yes, I know; they have spoken of the open sea.”
“Do you not believe that such a sea exists?”
“Yes, I do believe that it exists, and for valid reasons. In fact, it is perfectly manifest that these masses, called icebergs and ice-fields, could not be formed in the ocean itself. It is the tremendous and irresistible action of the surge which detaches them from the continents or islands of the high latitudes. Then the currents carry them into less cold waters, where their edges are worn by the waves, while the temperature disintegrates their bases and their sides, which are subjected to thermometric influences.”
“That seems very plain,” I replied. “Then these masses have come from the icebergs.(1) They clash with them in drifting, sometimes break into the main body, and clear their passage through. Again, we must not judge the southern by the northern zone. The conditions are not identical. Cook has recorded that he never met the equivalent of the Antarctic ice mountains in the Greenland seas, even at a higher latitude.”
“What is the reason?” I asked.