Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery. Captain Adam Seaborn

as much ease as men, and in the same erect posture. It occurred to me that a world, in which the brute creation were so neatly formed, so polished in their manners, so social in their habits, and so quiet and well behaved, must, if men existed in it, be the abode of a race perfect in their kind. I had no apprehension of the air being unhealthy in the internal world as suggested by Capt. Symmes, because the climate in which these visiters are found in the greatest numbers is the healthiest of the external world, which indicates that they are accustomed to good air, or they would not affect this salubrious region.

      Again, I had observed all these amphibia to be of a remarkably gentle and harmless disposition. The sea-lion, sea-elephant, and common seal, together with the king-penguin, the Gentoo, macaroni, and jackass-penguin, all of different habits, yet obviously of the same origin, accommodated themselves on the same island, fed in the same sea, and on the same food, without interfering with and without ever being observed to offer violence to each other; from which I inferred that the inhabitants of the internal world, influenced by the same causes, must be of a remarkably pacific, and gentle disposition.

      October had arrived, and I grew impatient of further delay. The sun was already pouring its rays of light and heat a constant stream upon the south pole. The season for active research in that region was come, and would soon be past. I directed Mr. Boneto to collect the skins which had been taken, at a convenient place on Grand Jason, and returned to the Explorer. I found every thing at States harbour as it should be. Mr. Albicore was an excellent officer. He took care to understand my orders, and to obey them implicitly. The launch was immediately hoisted in, and at dawn of day the following morning we sailed from that port, took in Boneto’s party, with near two thousand seal skins, and bore up for South Georgia.

      CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

      The author passes South Georgia, and proceeds in search of Sandwich land—States to his officers and men his reasons for believing in the existence of great bodies of land within the antarctic circle, and for the opinion that the polar region is subject to great heat in summer.—Crew mutiny at the instigation of Mr. Slim, third mate—Happy discovery of a southern continent, which, at the unanimous and earnest solicitation of his officers and men, he names Seaborn’s land.

      On the 10th of October we approached the principal harbour of South Georgia, which I had no intention to enter unless there was an appearance of an unusual abundance of seal on the coast. When near the harbour we discovered two ships lying there with their topmasts struck. This was evidence that there was no chance for us in that quarter. I now told my officers and people that I thought it useless to contend with those already in possession of the island for the few seal it could afford, and thought it most advisable to proceed in search of Sandwich land; where, no doubt, we could speedily obtain a full cargo of skins, if we could find it, of which I expressed great confidence. I strengthened their hopes by assuring them that there was no doubt in my mind of the existence of extensive bodies of land within the antarctic circle, which quarter had scarcely been looked into by Christian navigators, and that my opinion was founded upon the fact that Cook, and other navigators, had seen large bodies of ice in latitude 70° to 71° south. This fact, I said, indicated the existence of land, because ice could not form in a deep salt sea uninterrupted by land, and agitated by the violent winds and currents of the polar region. I urged that we had but to persevere in our researches in high southern latitudes, to make sure of finding land, which would yield us ample fortunes, for all southern islands, when first discovered, were found to abound in seal. Mr. Slim, the third mate, expressed some apprehension, that great danger might be encountered in high southern latitudes; that if we found land, the ice might close upon us and prevent our return to our country, as it once served a colony in Greenland. I was not much pleased with this. I have no patience with an officer who suggests doubts and difficulties when I have a grand project in view. I marked him, but at the same time pretended to listen to his observations, as objections of great weight, and then proceeded to remove them from the minds of the officers and people, by advancing the following reasons for my belief that the supposition of extreme cold at the pole was altogether gratuitous.

      1st. We know that the rays of the sun, uninfluenced by the atmosphere, would rest upon the pole for six successive months.

      2d. That a dense medium refracts, or bends the rays of the sun.

      3d. That the amount of that refraction depends upon the extent of the dense medium through which it has to pass.

      4th. That at the pole, the rays of the sun coming to it in a very oblique direction, must necessarily pass through our atmosphere a greater distance than on any other part of this globe, and consequently must there be refracted in a greater degree than elsewhere. Hence I inferred, that in consequence of this refraction, and of its increase in proportion to the obliquity of the direction of the rays, the sun when in the plane of the equator, must appear to an observer at the poles to be some degrees above the horizon, and that the sun must recede to the north of the equator at least five or six degrees of declination, before it would become invisible at the south pole: therefore, as it takes fifteen days to increase the sun’s declination five degrees, it must be visible at the poles one month longer, on account of the refraction, than it would be without it. This conclusion is corroborated by the testimony of Barentz, a Dutchman, who wintered in Nova Zembla. He found the sun to rise, in latitude 76°, fifteen days sooner than was expected by astronomical calculations. This will give the polar region seven months constant sunshine; think of that, my shipmates, said I, seven months constant day, with a continual stream of light and heat pouring upon the same spot, without any interval of night to cool the earth and air. I think if we can but find our way to the polar region, we shall be in much more danger of being roasted alive, than of being frozen to death. But, my lads, what Yankee sailor would hesitate to expose himself to be roasted or frozen alive to accomplish that which the British tars have endeavoured in vain to do? Three hearty cheers put an end to the debate. We bore up for Sandwich land, not that I had any belief in the existence of any such land, for I had always been of opinion, that the English placed this supposed land on their charts as an English discovery, stretching it along from the polar seas to latitude 57° south, that they might, whenever any land should be discovered in that unexplored quarter, have a pretence for laying claim to it as a British discovery.

      We had a fine gale from the S. W., and made rapid progress to the S. E. under canvass. Although the most perfect satisfaction with the course I had determined on appeared to prevail throughout the ship’s company, Mr. Slim came to me in my cabin, when relieved from his watch on deck, and told me, that, however satisfactory my account of the matter might have been to the other officers and the crew, it was not satisfactory to his mind; and he should be glad to be informed how I accounted for the vast bodies of ice which had invariably stopped the progress of navigators in high latitudes, if my notions of great heat at the poles were correct? “Take a chair, Mr. Slim, and we will talk about it. In the first place, we have no account of any navigator having sailed to a higher southern latitude than 71°, and 82° appears, from the most authentic accounts, to be the highest northern latitude that has been visited. Navigators to these high latitudes have always found ice between the parallels of 70° and 80°, which space that profound philosopher, John Cleve Symmes, denominates the ‘icy hoop.’ It is true he has not taken the trouble to explain to the world, in a satisfactory manner, why and wherefore this narrow strip of ice should exist in that region; which omission, I judge, must have arisen from the circumstance of its being obvious to his capacious mind, that such a ‘hoop’ must necessarily exist, ‘according to the laws of matter and motion.’ The causes of it appearing to him perfectly simple, he could not suppose it necessary to state them to ‘the most enlightened people on the face of the globe.’ Now, sir, I will explain the matter to you. At the pole, that is, ninety degrees from the equator, there is seven months summer, without any interval of night, as I stated on deck; and when the sun has twenty-three and a half degrees of south declination, its rays must strike the pole, allowing but three degrees for the effect of refraction, on an angle of 26½° with the plane of the horizon, and must appear nearly as high as in Scotland in the months of March and September. It is true it does not continue at this extreme