fixed icebergs is still the Unknown for me, as it is for other navigators."
"The Unknown! No, not absolutely, captain, since we possess the important reports of Weddell, and, I must add, of Arthur Pym also."
"Yes, I know; they have spoken of the open sea."
"Do you not believe that such a sea exists?"
"Yes, I do believe that it exists, and for valid reasons. In fact, it is perfectly manifest that these masses, called icebergs and icefields, could not be formed in the ocean itself. It is the tremendous and irresistible action of the surge which detaches them from the continents or islands of the high latitudes. Then the currents carry them into less cold waters, where their edges are worn by the waves, while the temperature disintegrates their bases and their sides, which are subjected to thermometric influences."
"That seems very plain," I replied. "Then these masses have come from the icebergs.[1] They clash with them in drifting, sometimes break into the main body, and clear their passage through. Again, we must not judge the southern by the northern zone. The conditions are not identical. Cook has recorded that he never met the equivalent of the Antarctic ice mountains in the Greenland seas, even at a higher latitude."
"What is the reason?" I asked.
"No doubt that the influence of the south winds is predominant in the northern regions. Now, those winds do not reach the northern regions until they have been heated in their passage over America, Asia, and Europe, and they
- ↑ The French word is banquise, which means the vast stretch of icebergs farther south than the barrière or ice-wall.
