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Rh in the middle of which was the Great Fountain, or rather fountains, for I now discovered there were many. Here a panorama burst upon my view that neither time, events, nor sojourn elsewhere is ever likely to efface from my memory. Here indeed was the Pole itself,—not a frozen waste, nor a frozen sea, but a great fountain, more beautiful than it would be possible for my imagination to contemplate—the centre of a great and populous city, itself the largest in a benignant continent, inhabited by a just, loving, and generous people. Yes, indeed, the South Pole itself! and I, Captain Periwinkle, of the whaling ship Penguin, was destined to be the first human being from our own great world to see it.

We now stepped from the vehicle, and I gazed long in amazement at the scene before me. The Great Fountain in the centre rose to the height of about five hundred feet, and sent its waters, which descended in the form of a circular cataract, fully two hundred feet higher. Just above the first falls, and resting on the central portion of the column which projected, was an enormous globe, from the top of which ascended another and smaller column, that sent up several streams of water from its basin-like top, one going from the centre to a great