At all events I undoubtedly
beheld the whole of the earth's major diameter; the entire northern
hemisphere lay beneath me like a chart orthographically projected: and
the great circle of the equator itself formed the boundary line of
my horizon. Your Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the
confined regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic
circle, although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen
without any appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in
themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a
distance from the point of sight, to admit of any very accurate
examination. Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature singular
and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before mentioned, and
which, with slight qualification, may be called the limit of human
discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or nearly unbroken, sheet of
ice continues to extend. In the first few degrees of this its
progress, its surface is very sensibly flattened, farther on depressed
into a plane, and finally, becoming not a little concave, it
terminates, at the Pole itself, in a circular centre, sharply defined,
wbose apparent diameter subtended at the balloon an angle of about
sixty-five seconds, and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was, at
all times, darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere, and
occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable
blackness.
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