The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras by Jules Verne Read Free Book Online Page A

icebergs."
    "Good," said Shandon; "you can still teach us a great deal about them."
    "O, not so very much!" answered Clawbonny, modestly, "except that ice has been seen in very much lower latitudes."
    "That I know, my dear Doctor, for when I was a cabin-boy on the sloop-of-war, Fly —"
    "In 1818," continued the doctor, "at the end of March, or it might have been the beginning of April, you passed between two large fields of floating ice, in latitude forty-two."
    "That is too much!" exclaimed Shandon.
    "But it's true; so I have no need to be surprised, now that we are two degrees farther north, at our sighting an iceberg." *
    "You are bottled full of information, Doctor," answered the commander; "one needs only draw the cork."
    "Very well, I shall be exhausted sooner than you think; and now, Shandon, if we can get a nearer view of this phenomenon, I should be the gladdest of doctors."
    "Exactly, Johnson," said Shandon, summoning the boatswain; "I think the wind is freshening."
    "Yes, Commander," answered Johnson, "we are making very little headway, and soon we shall feel the currents from Davis Strait."
    "You are right, Johnson, and if we mean to make Cape Farewell by the 20th of April, we must go under steam, or we shall be cast on the coast of Labrador.—Mr. Wall, give the order to light the fires."
    The mate's orders were obeyed; an hour later the engines were in motion; the sails were furled; and the screw, turning through the waves, was driving the Forward rapidly in the teeth of the northwest wind.

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CHAPTER VI.
THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT.

    Soon more numerous flocks of birds, petrels, puffins, and others which inhabit those barren shores, gave token of their approach to Greenland. The Forward was moving rapidly northward, leaving behind her a long line of dark smoke.
    Tuesday, the 17th of April, the ice-master caught the first sight of the blink * of the ice. It was visible at least twenty miles off to the north-northwest. In spite of some tolerably thick clouds it lighted up brilliantly all the air near the horizon. No one of those on board who had ever seen this phenomenon before could fail to recognize it, and they felt assured from its whiteness that this blink was due to a vast field of ice lying about thirty miles farther than they could see, and that it came from the reflection of its luminous rays.
* A peculiar and brilliant color of the air above a large expanse of ice.
    Towards evening the wind shifted to the south, and became favorable; Shandon was able to carry sail, and as a measure of economy they extinguished the furnace fires. The Forward under her topsails, jib, and foresail, sailed on towards Cape Farewell.
    At three o'clock on the 18th they made out an ice-stream, which, like a narrow but brilliant band, divided the lines of the water and sky. It was evidently descending rather from the coast of Greenland than from Davis Strait, for the ice tended to keep on the western side of Baffin's Bay. An hour later, and the Forward was passing through the detached fragments of the ice-stream, and in the thickest part the pieces of ice, although closely welded together, were rising and falling with the waves.
    At daybreak the next morning the watch saw a sail; it was the Valkyria , a Danish corvette, sailing towards the Forward , bound to Newfoundland. The current from the strait became perceptible, and Shandon had to set more sail to overcome it.
    At that moment the commander, the doctor, James Wall, and Johnson were all together on the poop-deck, observing the force and direction of the current. The doctor asked if it were proved that this current was felt throughout Baffin's Bay.
    "There's no doubt of it," answered Shandon; "and sailing-vessels have hard work in making headway against it."
    "And it's so much the harder," added James Wall, "because it's met on the eastern coast of America, as well as on the western coast of Greenland."
    "Well," said the doctor, "that serves to confirm those who seek a