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Grounds have been shown for the belief that the general level of the sea may have been different at different times; it has been suggested, for example, that the accumulation of ice about the poles during one of the cold periods of the earth's history, necessarily implies a diminution in the volume of the sea proportioned to the amount of its water thus permanently locked up in the Arctic and Antarctic ice-cellars; while, in the warm periods, the greater or less disappearance of the polar ice-cap implies a corresponding addition of water to the ocean.
To their surprise, the light was not instantly shut off, as when the moon occults a star, but there was evident refraction. "By George!" said Bearwarden, "here is an asteroid that HAS an atmosphere." There was no mistaking it. They soon discovered a small ice-cap at one pole, and then made out oceans and continents, with mountains, forests, rivers, and green fields.
Other explorations have been made, showing that the southern ice-cap does not probably extend, continuously at least, much farther north than 78A deg. or 80A deg., or to within some ten or twelve degrees of the south pole, independently of the packs of drifting ice in the otherwise open seas.
The image was that of the retreating ice-cap a wall of archaic glacier, as fixed, as ancient, as eternal, as the wall of archaic ice that blocked the ocean a few hundred miles to the northward, and more likely to advance. Scandinavia had been ever at its mercy. Europe had never changed.
There were very few steamers in those latitudes then; and when they desired to leave this dead and drifting carcase, no ship came in sight. They had drifted south out of men's knowledge. They failed to attract the attention of a lonely whaler, and very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea and closed the southern horizon like a wall.
I was heard aft, and we managed to clear the sunken floe which had come all the way from the Southern ice-cap to have a try at our unsuspecting lives. Had it been an hour later, nothing could have saved the ship, for no eye could have made out in the dusk that pale piece of ice swept over by the white-crested waves.
As to other species, the very numbers of their bands, always containing many males, render the "polygamous family" more than doubtful further observation is evidently wanted. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, fifth edition, 1890. That extension of the ice-cap is admitted by most of the geologists who have specially studied the glacial age.
They looked curious but not in the least alarmed, and not in the least upset, as they'd have been had older companions been injured or killed in the ship's landing. They wore brief garments that would have been quite suitable for a children's beach-party in mid-summer, but did not belong on the Antarctic ice-cap at any time.
If this be the true history of the formation of these icebergs, the absence of all land débris in the portion exposed above the surface of the sea is readily understood. If any such exist, it must be confined to the lower part of the berg, to that part which has at one time or other moved on the floor of the ice-cap. "The icebergs, when they are first dispersed, float in from 200 to 250 fathoms.
Long ago, crossing the ice-cap of North Greenland, he carried a wand of bamboo, on one end of which was attached a little silk guidon, with a star embroidered on it, but even that had been discarded and the only thing military about this expedition was his peremptory "Forward! March!" What flags we had were folded and stowed on Commander Peary's sledge, and broken-out only at the North Pole.
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