-continued abrasion;
the ice, in fact, bore unmistakable evidence of extreme age.

At the professor's suggestion a pause was made and a descent effected,
in order that he might carefully investigate the nature of the ice; and,
warmly clad in furs, the entire party left the ship for this purpose.

"It is as I feared," said von Schalckenberg, after they had toiled
painfully over the surface for some time; "we have reached the region of
paleocrystic or ancient ice; and my cherished theory of an open sea
about the North Pole vanishes into thin air. Look at this ice here,
where a portion of the original hummock still remains bare--it is yellow
and rotten, not with the rottenness which precedes a thaw, but with
extreme age. See, it crumbles at a kick or a blow, but the fragments do
not melt; it is years--possibly _ages_--since this ice was water. And
look at the edges of the blocks; they are rounded and worn away by the
constant abrading action of the wind, the snow, the hail, and possibly
the rain, which has beaten upon them through unnumbered years. It is no
wonder that this is a lifeless solitude; there is nothing here capable
of sustaining the life of even the meanest insect. Let us return to the
ship, my friends, and hasten over this part of our journey; we shall
meet with nothing worthy of interest until we reach the Pole, which
itself will probably prove to be merely an undistinguishable spot in
just such a waste as this."

The professor was, however mistaken; a most interesting discovery
awaited them at no very great distance ahead. They returned to the ship
oppressed with a vague feeling of melancholy foreboding for which they
could not account, but which was doubtless attributable to the gloomy
cheerless aspect of their surroundings, and, releasing the ship from the
hold of her grip-anchors, resumed their way northward at the _Flying
Fish's_ utmost speed.

Half an hour later, however, they suddenly checked their flight and
diverged a mile to the eastward of their former course to examine an
object which Mildmay's quick eye had detected. The object--or objects
rather, for there were two of them--proved to be short poles or spars
about twenty-five feet apart, projecting about twelve feet out of the
ice, and surmounted by the skeleton framework of what seemed to have
been at one time small bulwarked platforms. Wondering what they could
possibly be, and by whom placed in so out-of-the-way a region, but
think