grees 4 minutes latitude and 84 degrees 23 minutes longitude. The
_Forward_ was then at the extremity of Lancaster Strait.

Hatteras pointed out to the doctor on his map the route already taken,
and the one he meant to follow. The position of the brig at the time
was very interesting.

"I should like to have been further north," said he, "but no one can
do the impossible; see, this is our exact situation."

And the captain pricked his map at a short distance from Cape York.

"We are in the centre of this four-road way, open to every wind, fenced
by the outlets of Lancaster Strait, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel,
and Regent's Passage; it is a point that all navigators in these seas
have been obliged to come to."

"Well," replied the doctor, "it must have puzzled them greatly; four
cross-roads with no sign-posts to tell them which to take. How did
Parry, Ross, and Franklin manage?"

"They did not manage at all, they were managed; they had no choice,
I can assure you; sometimes Barrow Strait was closed to one of them,
and the next year another found it open; sometimes the vessel was
irresistibly drawn towards Regent's Passage, so that we have ended
by becoming acquainted with these inextricable seas."

"What a singular country!" said the doctor, examining the map. "It
is all in pieces, and they seem to have no logical connection. It
seems as if the land in the vicinity of the North Pole had been cut
up like this on purpose to make access to it more difficult, whilst
that in the other hemisphere quietly terminates in tapered-out points
like those of Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian
Peninsula. Is it the greater rapidity of the equator which has thus
modified matters, whilst the land at the extremities, yet fluid from
the creation, has not been able to get condensed or agglomerated
together, for want of a sufficiently rapid rotation?"

"That must be the case, for everything on earth is logical, and
'nothing is that errs from law,' and God often allows men to discover
His laws; make use of His permission, doctor."

"Unfortunately, I shall not be able to take much advantage of it,"
said the doctor, "but the wind here is something dreadful," added
he, muffling himself up as well as he could.

"Yes, we are quite exposed to the north wind, and it is turning us
out of our road."

"Anyhow it ought to drive the ice down south, and level a clear road."

"It ought to do so, doctor, but the wind does not