ment of the
intense cold, to which they were already in a measure growing
accustomed, they set to work with a will plying pick-axe and shovel upon
the ice with such small dexterity as they possessed.

The task to which they had devoted themselves was, after all, not a very
difficult one, the ice, especially that of ancient formation, yielding
readily before the vigorous strokes of their picks; and it soon became
evident that they could work to greater advantage by dividing themselves
into two gangs of two each; one gang breaking up the ice with the pick,
and the other shovelling away the debris. The low temperature, however,
made the work very exhausting; and by lunch time they had only succeeded
in excavating a hole some twenty-five feet long--or the distance between
the two masts--by six feet wide and four feet deep. They had widened
this excavation by a couple of feet and sunk it some four feet deeper by
six o'clock that evening; and then they knocked off work for the day,
returning to the _Flying Fish_ stiff, and exhausted with their unwonted
exertions, but with more voracious appetites than they ever remembered
experiencing before.

In this way they laboured day after day for ten days; being greatly
hindered in their operations by frequent showers of snow, which filled
up their excavation almost as rapidly as they made it, until, beginning
to lose patience at their slow progress, they resolved to run a little
risk, and the professor was induced to employ a minute portion of his
explosive compound in blowing away the sides of the pit to a sufficient
extent to allow of the snow drifting out with the wind instead of
lodging in the bottom. This engineering feat was successfully
accomplished without apparent damage to the object they sought to bring
to light; and, thus encouraged, they further cautiously employed the
compound in breaking up the ice, with the triumphant result that, on the
evening of the thirteenth day before giving up work, they succeeded in
uncovering the deck of a craft measuring eighty feet long over all by
sixteen feet beam. They were now intensely excited and elated, as they
had every reason to believe that--judging from certain peculiarities of
build which had already revealed themselves--they had discovered a most
interesting relic.

The next morning was most fortunately as fine as they could reasonably
expect it to be in that stormy and desolate region; and, commencing work
at an early ho