Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/355

 sites for encamping, and the clothing and blankets of the crew. Following the example of McClure in similar circumstances, he also encircled the ship with a girdle of hammocks inflated with air, so as to ward off great seas, and the ice so accumulated on these that there was soon a high wall all around, and nothing of the ship was visible except the mainmast.

For seven days they sailed along in this strange fashion. On the 10th of September they caught a glimpse of Point Albert, the western extremity of New Cornwall. But they soon lost sight of it, as the ice-field began now to move in an easterly direction. Where could it go, and where would it stop? Who could say.

The crew waited with folded arms. At last, on the 15th of September, about three in the afternoon, the ice-field came into collision, no doubt, with another field, for it stopped suddenly short, and a violent shock shook the vessel to her center. Hatteras, who had taken his bearings during the day, consulted his chart. He found himself in the north, with no land in sight, in longitude 95° 35', and latitude 78° 15', in the heart of that unknown sea, where geographers have placed the point of greatest cold.

average temperature of the regions in which Hatteras found himself was 15° lower than any other part of the world. He was two hundred and fifty miles, by his reckoning, distant from the last point of known land—that is, from New Cornwall—and his ship was fast locked in ice, as if embedded in granite.

It was a terrible situation to be in, and he knew what a fearful winter he would have to go through, with a brig in such a position and a half-mutinous crew. But his courage rose to meet the danger, and he lost no time in commencing preparations for winter quarters, aided by the long experience of Johnson.

Far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ice; not a drop of water was visible in all the region. But the surface of the ice-fields was by no means smooth and uniform.