the certainty of land being close
to him, when, in the Antarctic regions, he found himself amongst no
less than one hundred and eighty-six icebergs in December, 1773; he
who, from the deck of a collier, had risen to be the Columbus of
England, might have then plucked the laurel which Sir James Ross so
gallantly won in the discovery of the circumpolar continent of Queen
Victoria's Land.

On every side of the southern pole, on every meridian of the great
South Sea, the seaman meets icebergs. Not so in the north. In the 360
degrees of longitude, which intersects the parallel of 70 degrees north
(about which parallel the coasts of America, Europe, and Asia will be
found to lie), icebergs are only found over an extent of some 55
degrees of longitude, and this is immediately in and about Greenland
and Baffin's Bay. In fact, for 1375 miles of longitude we have
icebergs, and then for 7635 geographical miles none are met with. This
interesting fact is, in my opinion, most cheering, and points strongly
to the possibility that no extensive land exists about our northern
pole,--a supposition which is borne out by the fact, that the vast
ice-fields off Spitzbergen show no symptoms of ever having been in
contact with land or gravel. Of course, the more firmly we can bring
ourselves to believe in the existence of an ocean road leading to
Behring's Straits, the better heart we shall feel in searching the
various tortuous channels and different islands with which, doubtless,
Franklin's route has been beset. It was not, therefore, without deep
interest that I passed the boundary which Nature had set in the west to
the existence of icebergs, and endeavoured to form a correct idea of
the cause of such a phenomenon.

[Headnote: _A GALE IN BARROW'S STRAIT._]

Whilst this digression upon icebergs has taken place, the kind reader
will suppose the calm to have ceased, and the "Resolute" and "Pioneer,"
under sail before a westerly wind, to be running from the table-land on
the north shore of Lancaster Sound, in a diagonal direction towards
Leopold Island. On the 26th of August, Cape York gleamed through an
angry sky, and as Regent's Inlet opened to the southward, there was
little doubt but we should soon be caught in an Arctic gale: we,
however, cared little, provided there was plenty of water ahead, though
of that there appeared strong reasons for entertaining doubts, as both
the temperature of the air and water was fast falling.

That nig