Had we passed on, we should have found the Russian Arctic coast line, traced out by a series of Russian explorers; of whom the most illustrious--Baron Von Wrangell--states, that beyond a certain distance to the northward there is always found what he calls the _Polynja_ (open water).

This is the fact adduced by those who adhere to the old fancy that there is a sea about the Pole itself quite free from ice.
We pass through Behring Straits.

Behring, a Dane by birth, but in the Russian service, died here in 1741, upon the scene of his discovery.

He and his crew, victims of scurvy, were unable to manage their vessel in a storm; and it was at length wrecked on a barren island, there, where "want, nakedness, cold, sickness, impatience, and despair, were their daily guests," Behring, his lieutenant, and the master died.
Now we must put a girdle round the world, and do it with the speed of Ariel.

Here we are already in the heats of the equator.