the sea of the northern temperate
zone. It varies in height from 400 to 600 feet, in width from 100 to
300 yards, its channel never exceeds 20 feet in depth, Ergimo
explained that the length had been thought to render a tunnel
unsuitable, as the ordinary method of ventilation could hardly have
been made to work, and to ventilate such a tunnel through shafts sunk
to so great a depth would have been almost as costly as the method
actually adopted. A much smaller breadth might have been thought to
suffice, and was at first intended; but it was found that the current
in a narrow channel, the outer sea being many inches higher than the
water of the gulf, would have been too rapid and violent for safety.
The work had occupied fifteen Martial years, and had been opened only
for some eight centuries. The water was not more than twenty feet in
depth; but the channel was so perfectly scoured by the current that no
obstacle had ever arisen and no expense had been incurred to keep it a
clear. We entered the Northern sea where a bay ran up some half dozen
miles towards the end of the gulf, shortening the canal by this
distance. The bay itself was shallow, the only channel being scarcely
wider than the canal, and created or preserved by the current setting
in to the latter; a current which offered a very perceptible
resistance to our course, and satisfied me that had the canal been no
wider than the convenience of navigation would have required in the
absence of such a stream, its force would have rendered the work
altogether useless. We crossed the sea, holding on in the same
direction, and a little before sunset moored our vessel at the wharf
of a small harbour, along the sides of which was built the largest
town of this subarctic landbelt, a village of some fifty houses named
Askinta.

CHAPTER XV - FUR-HUNTING.

Ergimo landed to make arrangements for the chase, to witness which was
the principal object of this deviation from what would otherwise have
been our most convenient course. Not only would it be possible to take
part in the pursuit of the wild fauna of the continent, but I also
hoped to share in a novel sport, not unlike a whale-hunt in Baffin's
Bay. A large inland sea, occupying no inconsiderable part of the area
of this belt, lay immediately to the northward, and one wide arm
thereof extended within a few miles of Askirita, a distance which,
notwithstanding the interposition of a mountain range, might be
crossed i