THE JOURNAL OF M. J. DUMONT-D'URVILLE. 459 
obstacle; for notwithstanding their force they had only been able, with 
their incessant hammering, to tear off a few small pieces. 
We spent all day sailing twenty to twenty-five leagues along this ice- 
coast without seeing any peak rising above the snow plain. The cliffs 
along the shore were too high to allow us to distinguish the details of the 
interior. In vain we scanned carefully all the contours, trying to 
discover some rock or sign of land; everywhere we beheld nothing but 
compact ice, reflecting in a thousand different ways the luminous rays 
which fell on it. 
In the evening we reached a projecting headland on this extraordinary 
coast. Here its direction seemed to change, appearing to go off to the 
south-west, and the clearness we had noticed in this direction after sun- 
set, showed that it stretched away to the west for a very long distance. 
At this point we finished our exploration. At 6 p.m., before taking our 
course to the west, our ships seized a moment of shelter under the ice to 
communicate with one another. While a boat from the Astrolabe went 
off to the Zélée, we let down a sounding-line of 200 fathoms, without 
finding bottom. A thermometer was fastened to the lead, and registered 
at this depth one degree less than on the surface. M. Dumoulin ex- 
pected to have found an increase rather than a fall in temperature, the 
water at the surface being at zero. He attributed this result to the fact 
of our being too near to the ice (glaces). For my part, I willingly 
accept his view—namely, that when the water at the surface is at zero, 
one would expect to find an increase of temperature in soundings of 
great depth. 
Thus, for more than 12 hours we had sailed along this ice-wall, 
which was perfectly vertical at the edge and horizontal at the top. 
Not the smallest irregularity, not the slightest eminence, broke this 
uniformity in the course of the 20 leagues which were made that day, 
although we sometimes sailed at a distance of two or three miles out, in 
order to note the slightest irregularities. Several large icebergs (qlaces) 
lay along the icy coast, but in general the sea was almost free in tho 
open. 
As to the nature of this enormous wall, opinions were once more 
divided, as when we had sighted Adélie Land; some holding that this 
was a mass of compact ice independent of all land, and others, of which 
Iam one, maintained that this formidable belt was at least an envelope, 
a crust, covering a solid base, either of land, of rock, or even of scattered 
shoals round a vast land. This view I base on the principle that no ice 
of great extent can be formed in the open sea, and that it must always 
have a solid point of support to allow of it being formed while stationary. 
Thus, in the Arctic polar regions one sees in winter great stretches of 
coast entirely buried under thick layers of ice. Even in the northern 
parts of France one sees after heavy falls of snow followed by sharp 
frost the inequalities of the soil become gradually obliterated, and often 
