The Dipsey was not expected to be, under any circumstances, a
swift vessel, and now, retarded by her outside attachments, she
moved but slowly under the waters. The telegraphic wire which
she laid as she proceeded was the thinnest and lightest submarine
cable ever manufactured, but the mass of it was of great weight,
and as it found its way to the bottom it much retarded the
progress of the vessel, which moved more slowly than was
absolutely necessary, for fear of breaking this connection with
the living world.

Onward, but a few knots an hour, the Dipsey moved like a fish in
the midst of the sea. The projectors of the enterprise had a
firm belief that there was a channel from Baffin's Bay into an
open polar sea, which would be navigable if its entrance were not
blocked up by ice, and on this belief were based all their hopes
of success. So the explorers pressed steadily onward, always
with an anxious lookout above them for fear of striking the
overhanging ice, always with an anxious lookout below for fear of
dangers which might loom up from the bottom, always with an
anxious lookout starboard for fear of running against the
foundations of Greenland, always with an anxious lookout to port
for fear of striking the groundwork of the unknown land to the
west, and always keeping a lookout in every direction for
whatever revelation these unknown waters might choose to make to
them.

Captain Jim Hubbell had no sympathy with the methods of
navigation practised on board the Dipsey. So long as he could
not go out on deck and take his noon observations, he did not