ow water. Beyond
and southward they knew that the water was deep and safe. If they could
reach that portion of the sea without crossing the shallow point, they
would have no fears regarding their return voyage. They knew how far
south it was that that deep water lay, and the questions before them
related to the best means of reaching it.

At a general council of officers, Sammy and Captain Hubbell both
declared that they were not willing to take any other path homeward
except one which led along the seventieth line of longitude. That had
brought them safely up, and it would take them safely down. If they
went under the ice at some point eastward, how were they to find the
seventieth line of longitude? They could not take observations down
there; and they might have to go south on some other line, which would
take them nobody knew where. Mr. Gibbs said little, but he believed that
it would be well to go back the way they came.

At last a plan was proposed by Mr. Marcy, and adopted without dissent.
The whole country which lay in the direction they wished to travel
seemed to be an immense plain of ice and snow, with mountains looming up
towards the west and in the far southeast. In places great slabs of ice
seemed to be piled up into craggy masses, but in general the surface
of the country was quite level, indicating underlying water. In fact,
a little east of the point where they had entered the polar sea great
cracks and reefs, some of them extending nearly a mile inward, broke up
the shore line. The party on the Dipsey were fully able to travel over
smooth ice and frozen snow, for this contingency had been thought of and
provided for; but to take the Dipsey on an overland journey would, of
course, be impossible. By Mr. Marcy's plan, however, it was thought that
it would be quite feasible for the Dipsey to sail inland until she had
reached a point where they were sure the deep sea lay serenely beneath
the ice around them.

CHAPTER XVIII. Mr. MARCY'S CANAL

The twelve men and the one woman on board the Dipsey, now lying at
anchor in the polar sea, were filled with a warming and cheering ardor
as they began their preparations for the homeward journey, although
these preparations included what was to all of them a very painful piece
of work. It was found that it would be absolutely necessary to disengage
themselves from the electric cord which in all their voyaging in these
desolate arctic regions, under water a