that the ice above,
which they were now obliged to approach much more closely than they had
ever done before, was comparatively thin, and broken in many places.
Great cracks could be seen in it here and there, and movements could
be discerned indicating that it 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.

The electric lead-line was shortened to the length of a few fathoms,
and even then it sometimes suddenly rang out its alarm. After a time the
bottom of the sea became visible through the stout glass of a protected
window near the bow, and a man was placed there to report what he could
see below them.

It had now become so light that in some parts of the vessel the electric
lamps were turned out. Fissures of considerable size appeared in the ice
above, and then, to the great excitement of every one, the vessel slowly
moved under a wide space of open water; but the ice could be seen ah