"I do not know," he replied. "At noon I will take our bearings."
"But will the sun show himself through this fog?" said I,
looking at the leaden sky.
"However little it shows, it will be enough," replied the Captain.
About ten miles south a solitary island rose to a height
of one hundred and four yards. We made for it, but carefully,
for the sea might be strewn with banks. One hour afterwards we
had reached it, two hours later we had made the round of it.
It measured four or five miles in circumference.
A narrow canal separated it from a considerable stretch of land,
perhaps a continent, for we could not see its limits.
The existence of this land seemed to give some colour to Maury's theory.
The ingenious American has remarked that, between the South Pole
and the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice
of enormous size, which is never met with in the North Atlantic.
From this fact he has drawn the conclusion that the Antarctic
Circle encloses considerable continents, as icebergs cannot form
in open sea, but only on the coasts.
Pages:
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424