ing animation; "where it is, I am going!"

"But that is the top of the volcano!" said the doctor.

"I'm going!"

"It's an inaccessible spot!"

"I'm going!"

"It's a fiery crater!"

"I'm going!"

The firmness with which Hatteras uttered these words cannot be given.
His friends were stupefied; they gazed with horror at the volcano
tipped with flame. Then the doctor began; he urged and besought
Hatteras to give up his design; he said everything he could imagine,
from entreaty to well-meant threats; but he obtained no concession
from the nervous captain, who was possessed with a sort of madness
which may be called polar madness. Only violent means could stop him,
rushing to his ruin. But seeing that thereby they would produce
serious results, the doctor wished to keep them for a last resource.
He hoped, too, that some physical impossibility, some unsurmountable
difficulty, would compel him to give up his plan.

"Since it is so," he said, "we shall follow you."

"Yes," answered the captain, "half-way up the mountain! No farther!
Haven't you got to carry back to England the copy of the document
which proves our discovery, in case--"

"Still--"

"It is settled," said Hatteras, in a tone of command; "and since my
entreaties as a friend are not enough, I order it as captain."

The doctor was unwilling to urge him any further, and a few moments
later the little band, equipped for a hard climb, and preceded by
Duke, set out. The sky was perfectly clear. The thermometer stood at
52 degrees. The air had all the brilliancy which is so marked at this
high latitude. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Hatteras went
ahead with his dog, the others followed close behind.

"I'm anxious," said Johnson.

"No, no, there's nothing to fear," answered the doctor; "we are here."

It was a strange island, in appearance so new and singular! The
volcano did not seem old, and geologists would have ascribed a recent
date to its formation.

The rocks were heaped upon one another, and only kept in place by
almost miraculous balancing. The mountain, in fact, was composed of
nothing but stones that had fallen from above. There was no soil, no
moss, no lichen, no trace of vegetation. The carbonic acid from the
crater had not yet had time to unite with the hydrogen of the water;
nor the ammonia of the clouds, to form under the action of the light,
organized matter. This island had arisen from successive volcanic
eruptions, like many o