4io Chapter VII. 



a temperature of from 22 F. below zero ( 30 C.) to 

 40 F. below zero ( 40 C.) is not the pleasantest in 

 which to manipulate such things as steel-wire, yet for 

 all that the work went on well. The cable was unlaid 

 into its separate strands, and a fresh, pliant lead-line 

 manufactured by twisting two of these strands together. 

 In this way we made a line of between 4,000 to 5,000 

 metres (2,150 to 2,700 fathoms) long, and could now at 

 last reach the bottom. The depth proved to range 

 between 3, 300 and 3,900 metres (i, 800 to 2,100 fathoms). 



This was a remarkable discovery, for, as I have 

 frequently mentioned, the unknown polar basin has 

 always been supposed to be shallow, with numerous 

 unknown lands and islands. I, too, had assumed it to 

 be shallow when I sketched out my plan (see page 24), 

 and had thought it was traversed by a deep channel 

 which might possibly be a continuation of the deep 

 channel in the North Atlantic (see page 28). 



From this assumption of a shallow Polar Sea it was 

 concluded that the regions about the Pole had formerly 

 been covered with an extensive tract of land, of which 

 the existing islands are simply the remains. This 

 extensive tract of polar land was furthermore assumed to 

 have been the nursery of many of our animal and plant 

 forms, whence they had found their way to lower 

 latitudes. These conjectures now appear to rest on a 

 somewhat infirm basis. 



This great depth indicates that here, at all events, 



