nd above water, had connected
them with the Works of Roland Clewe at Sardis, New Jersey. A sufficient
length of this cord, almost too slight to be called cable, to reach
from Cape Tariff to the pole, with a margin adequate for all probable
emergencies, had been placed on board the Dipsey, and it was expected
that on her return these slender but immensely strong wires would be
wound up, instead of being let out, and so still connect the vessel with
Mr. Clewe's office.

But the Dipsey had sailed in such devious ways and in so many directions
that she had laid a great deal of the cable upon the bottom of the polar
sea, and it would be difficult, or perhaps impossible, to sail back over
her previous tracks and take it up again; and there was not enough of
it left for her to proceed southward very far and still keep up her
telegraphic communication. Consequently it was considered best, upon
starting southward, that they should cut loose from all connection with
their friends and the rest of the world. They would have to do this
anyway in a short time. If they left the end of the wire in some
suitable position on the coast of the polar sea, it might prove of
subsequent advantage to science, whereas if they cut loose when they
were submerged in the ocean, this cable from Cape Tariff to the pole
must always be absolutely valueless. It was therefore determined to
build a little house, for which they had the material, and place therein
a telegraph instrument connected with the wire, and provided with one
of the Collison batteries, which would remain in working order with a
charge sufficient to last for forty years, and this, with a ground-wire
run down through the ice to the solid earth, might make telegraphic
communication possible to some subsequent visitor to the pole.

But apart from the necessity of giving up connection with Sardis, the
journey did not seem like such a strange and solemn progress through
unknown regions as the northern voyage had been. If they could get
themselves well down into the deep sea at a point on the seventieth line
of longitude, they would sail directly south with every confidence of
emerging safely into Baffin's Bay.

The latest telegrams between Sardis and the polar sea were composed
mostly of messages of the warmest friendship and encouragement. If Mr.
Clewe and Mrs. Raleigh felt any fears as to the success of the first
part of the return journey, they showed no signs of them, and Sammy
never