dismasted ship, embedded clear up to the gunwale[3] in the ice. There lay the whole deck of a three-masted vessel, unbroken and undisturbed; but, as I soon ascertained, there was no hull underneath, for the deck had evidently been broken off from the lower parts of the ship, and thrown up the smooth, inclined plane of ice to the spot where I found it, and then been frozen in there. What a discovery this was! I did not know how to contain or how to express my delight; and, before beginning to explore the premises, the very first thing that I did was to rush up to the bell, that hung near the bows, and ring it with all my might. You can't tell how strange it sounded, up there in that solitary, silent, arctic sea, to hear the loud clang of the old bell sounding out over the waters, as I tugged and tugged away at the rope. It would have done the hearts of "Hooper & Son, Boston, Mass.,"--whose name I saw printed on it,--it would have done the whole firm good, to have heard it. After I had ceased ringing, and slowly tolled the bell for a few minutes, so that I might make it seem as if I were going to meeting in Roxbury, I sat down on the capstan to think matters over. Nothing had happened yet that excited me like this. Jumping through the earth, and then getting stuck in the centre; being blown through the axis, and lighting on an iceberg at the north pole, and all that sort of thing,--I looked back upon rather as a matter of course. But to find myself sitting here on the deck of a three-master, with the cabins and offices at the stern all in good order, and the caboose-house in the centre, with the little funnel sticking out of the top, and a big boat close by it, covered with canvas, and a huge anchor at the bows, and spare rigging and spare masts lying all along the sides, and a _real bell_ to ring,--this was a little too much, even for John Whopper.