Indeed, had we encountered a hidden rock or obstacle, our little
vessel would have been crushed into kindling-wood.

At last we were conscious that the atmosphere was growing
decidedly colder, and, a few days later, icebergs were sighted
far to the left. My father argued, and correctly, that the winds
which filled our sails came from the warm climate "within." The
time of the year was certainly most auspicious for us to make our
dash for the "outside" world and attempt to scud our fishing
sloop through open channels of the frozen zone which surrounds
the polar regions.

We were soon amid the ice-packs, and how our little craft got
through. the narrow channels and escaped being crushed I know
not. The compass behaved in the same drunken and unreliable
fashion in passing over the southern curve or edge of the
earth's shell as it had done on our inbound trip at the northern
entrance. It gyrated, dipped and seemed like a thing
possessed.[23]

[23 Captain Sabine, on page 105 in "Voyages in the
Arctic Regions," says: "The geographical determination of the
direction and intensity of the magnetic forces at different
points of the earth's surface has been regarded as an object
worthy of especial research. To examine in different parts of the
globe, the declination, inclination and intensity of the magnetic
force, and their periodical and secular variations, and mutual
relations and dependencies could be duly investigated only in
fixed magnetical observatories."]