was a floe, or floating mass of ice. If that were the case, it
was not impossible that they were now nearing the edge of the ice
under which they had so long been sailing, and that beyond them
was the open water. If they could reach that, and find it the
unobstructed sea which was supposed to exist at this end of the
earth's axis, their expedition was a success. At that moment
they were less than one hundred miles from the pole.

Whether the voyagers on the Dipsey were more excited when the
probable condition of their situation became known to them, or
whether Roland Clewe and Margaret Raleigh in the office of the
Works at Sardis were the more greatly moved when they received
that day's report from the arctic regions, it would be hard to
say. If there should be room enough for the little submarine
vessel to safely navigate beneath the ice which there was such
good reason to believe was floating on the edge of the body of
water they had come in search of, and on whose surface they might
freely sail, what then was likely to hinder them from reaching
the pole? The presence of ice in the vicinity of that extreme
northern point was feared by no one concerned in the expedition,
for it was believed that the rotary motion of the earth would
have a tendency to drive it away from the pole by centrifugal
force.

The little thermometer-boat which during the submarine voyage of
the Dipsey had constantly preceded her to give warning of the
sunken base of some great iceberg, was now drawn in close to the
bow; there was so much ice so near that its warnings were
constant, and therefore unneeded.