THE SECRET OF THE NORTH POLE. Ill 



bergen before winter set in or their stores were 

 exhausted. Besides, there were no signs of water in 

 the direction they had been taking. The water-sky 

 of arctic regions can be recognised by the experienced 

 seamen long before the open sea itself is visible. On 

 every side, however, there were the signs of widely- 

 extended ice-fields. It seemed, therefore, hopeless to 

 persevere, and Parry decided on returning with all 

 possible speed to the haven of refuge prepared for the 

 party in Spitzbergen. He had succeeded in reaching 

 the highest northern latitudes ever yet attained by 

 man. (A somewhat higher latitude has since been 

 reached by Captain Nares's expedition.) 



The most remarkable feature of this expedition, 

 however, is not the high latitude which the party 

 attained, but the strange circumstance which led to 

 their discomfiture. What opinion are we to form of 

 an ocean at once wide and deep enough to float an 

 ice-field which must have been thirty or forty thou- 

 sand square miles in extent? Parry had travelled 

 upwards of three hundred miles across the field, and 

 we may fairly suppose that he might have travelled 

 forty or fifty miles farther without reaching open 

 water ; also that the field extended fully fifty miles on 

 each side of Parry's northerly track. That the whole 

 of so enormous a field should have floated freely before 

 the arctic winds is indeed an astonishing circumstance. 

 On every side of this floating ice-island there must 

 have been seas comparatively free from ice ; and could 

 a stout ship have forced its way through these seas, the 



