Next day was the 24th of July; and the 24th of July in the southern hemisphere corresponds to the 24th of January in the northern. The fifty-sixth degree of latitude¹ had been left behind. The similar parallel in northern Europe runs through Edinburgh.  
The thermometer kept steadily² below freezing, so that the machinery³ was called upon to furnish a little artificial heat in the cabins. Although the days begin to lengthen⁴ after the 21st day of June in the southern hemisphere, yet the advance of the "Albatross" towards the Pole more than neutralized⁵ this increase, and consequently the daylight became very short. There was thus very little to be seen. At night time the cold became very keen; but as there was no scarcity⁶ of clothing on board, the colleagues, well wrapped up, remained a good deal on deck thinking over their plans of escape, and watching for an opportunity. Little was seen of Robur; since the high words that had been exchanged in the Timbuktu country, the engineer had left off speaking to his prisoners. Frycollin seldom came out of the cook-house, where Tapage treated him most hospitably⁸, on condition that he acted as his assistant. This position was not without its advantages, and the Negro, with his master's permission, very willingly accepted it. Shut up in the galley⁹, he saw nothing of what was passing outside, and might even consider himself beyond the reach of danger. He was, in fact, very like the ostrich¹⁰, not only in his stomach, but in his folly¹¹.
 
But whither went the "Albatross?" Was she in mid-winter bound for the southern seas or continents round the Pole? In this icy atmosphere, even granting that the elements of the batteries were unaffected by such frost, would not all the crew succumb¹² to a horrible death from the cold? That Robur should attempt to cross the Pole in the warm season was bad enough, but to attempt such a thing in the depth of the winter night would be the act of a madman.
 
Thus reasoned the President and Secretary of the Weldon Institute, now they had been brought to the end of the continent of the New World, which is still America, although it does not belong to the United States.
 
What was this intractable Robur going to do? Had not the time arrived for them to end the voyage by blowing up the ship?
 
It was noticed that during the 24th of July the engineer had frequent consultations¹³ with his mate. He and Tom Turner kept constant watch on the barometer¹⁴—not so much to keep themselves informed of the height at which they were traveling as to be on the look-out for a change in the weather. Evidently some indications had been observed of which it was necessary to make careful note.
 
Uncle Prudent¹⁵ also remarked that Robur had been taking stock of the provisions and stores, and everything seemed to show that he was contemplating¹⁶ turning back.
 
"Turning back!" said Phil Evans. "But where to?"
 
"Where he can reprovision the ship," said Uncle Prudent.
 
"That ought to be in some lonely island in the Pacific with a colony of scoundrels worthy¹⁷ of their chief."
 
"That is what I think. I fancy he is going west, and with the speed he can get up it would not take, him long to get home."
 
"But we should not be able to put our plan into execution. If we get there—"
 
"We shall not get there!"
 
The colleagues had partly guessed the engineer's intentions. During the day it became no longer doubtful that when the "Albatross" reached the confines of the Antarctic Sea her course was to be changed. When the ice has formed about Cape⁷ Horn the lower regions of the Pacific are covered with icefields and icebergs¹⁸. The floes then form an impenetrable barrier to the strongest ships and the boldest navigators. Of course, by increasing the speed of her wings the "Albatross" could clear the mountains of ice accumulated on the ocean as she could the mountains of earth on the polar continent—if it is a continent that forms the cap of the southern pole. But would she attempt it in the middle of the polar night, in an atmosphere of sixty below freezing?
 
After she had advanced about a hundred miles to the south the "Albatross" headed westerly, as if for some unknown island of the Pacific. Beneath her stretched the liquid plain between Asia and America. The waters now had assumed that singular color which has earned for them the name of the Milky¹⁹ Sea. In the half shadow, which the enfeebled rays of the sun were unable to dissipate, the surface of the Pacific was a milky white. It seemed like a vast snowfield, whose undulations were imperceptible at such a height. If the sea had been solidified²⁰ by the cold, and converted into an immense icefie............