din had ceased, "dynamite is indeed a powerful agent when
properly applied: immeasurably more effective than powder."

"But it seems to me," said Leo, beginning to recover himself, "that
although you have brought the berg down you have not rendered it much
more passable."

"That's true, lad," answered the Captain with a somewhat rueful
expression. "It does seem a lumpy sort of heap after all; but there may
be found some practicable bits when we examine it more closely. Come,
we'll go see."

On closer inspection it was found that the ruined berg still presented
an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to the explorers, who, being
finally compelled to admit that even dynamite had failed, left the place
in search of a natural opening.

Travelling along the chain for a considerable time, in the hope of
succeeding, they came at last to a succession of comparatively level
floes, which conducted them to the extreme northern end of the chain,
and there they found that the floes continued onwards in an unbroken
plain to what appeared to be the open sea.

"That is a water-sky, for certain," exclaimed Captain Vane, eagerly, on
the evening when this discovery was made. "The open ocean cannot now be
far off."

"There's a very dark cloud there, father," said Benjy, who, as we have
before said, possessed the keenest sight of the party.

"A cloud, boy! where? Um--Yes, I see something--"

"It is land," said Chingatok, in a low voice.

"Land!" exclaimed the Captain, "are you sure?"

"Yes, I know it well. I passed it on my journey here. We left our
canoes and oomiaks there, and took to sledges because the floes were
unbroken. But these ice-mountains were not here at that time. They
have come down since we passed from the great sea."

"There!" said the Captain, turning to Leo with a look of triumph, "he
still speaks of the great sea! If these bergs came from it, we _must_
have reached it, lad."

"But the land puzzles me," said Leo. "Can it be part of Greenland?"

"Scarcely, for Greenland lies far to the east'ard, and the latest
discoveries made on the north of that land show that the coast turns
still more decidedly east--tending to the conclusion that Greenland is
an island. This land, therefore, must be entirely new land--an island--
a continent perhaps."

"But it may be a cape, father," interposed Benjy. "You know that capes
have a queer way of sticking out suddenly from land, just as men's noses
stick out fr