ship was surrounded by a
wall of ice, above which her masts only were to be seen. They navigated
thus for seven days; Point Albert, the western extremity of New
Cornwall, was sighted on the 10th of September, but soon disappeared;
from thence the ice-field drifted east. Where would it take them to?
Where should they stop? Who could tell? The crew waited, and the men
folded their arms. At last, on the 15th of September, about three
o'clock in the afternoon, the ice-field, stopped, probably, by
collision with another field, gave a violent shake to the brig, and
stood still. Hatteras found himself out of sight of land in latitude
78 degrees 15 minutes and longitude 95 degrees 35 minutes in the midst
of the unknown sea, where geographers have placed the Frozen Pole.

CHAPTER XXIV

PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING

The southern hemisphere is colder in parallel latitudes than the
northern hemisphere; but the temperature of the new continent is still
15 degrees below that of the other parts of the world; and in America
the countries known under the name of the Frozen Pole are the most
formidable. The average temperature of the year is 2 degrees below
zero. Scientific men, and Dr. Clawbonny amongst them, explain the
fact in the following way. According to them, the prevailing winds
of the northern regions of America blow from the south-west; they
come from the Pacific Ocean with an equal and bearable temperature;
but in order to reach the Arctic Seas they have to cross the immense
American territory, covered with snow, they get cold by contact with
it, and then cover the hyperborean regions with their frigid violence.
Hatteras found himself at the Frozen Pole beyond the countries seen
by his predecessors; he, therefore, expected a terrible winter on
a ship lost in the midst of the ice with a crew nearly in revolt.
He resolved to face these dangers with his accustomed energy. He began
by taking, with the help of Johnson's experience, all the measures
necessary for wintering. According to his calculations he had been
dragged two hundred and fifty miles beyond New Cornwall, the last
country discovered; he was clasped in an ice-field as securely as
in a bed of granite, and no power on earth could extricate him.

There no longer existed a drop of water in the vast seas over which
the Arctic winter reigned. Ice-fields extended as far as the eye could
reach, bristling with icebergs, and the _Forward_ was sheltered by
three of