This record being carefully secured in a small glass vial, which I brought for the purpose, it was deposited beneath the cairn; and then our faces were turned homewards. But I quit the place with reluctance. It possessed a fascination for me, and it was with no ordinary sensations that I contemplated my situation, with one solitary companion, in that hitherto untrodden desert; while my nearness to the earth's axis, the consciousness of standing upon land far beyond the limits of previous observation, the reflections which crossed my mind respecting the vast ocean which lay spread out before me, the thought that these ice-girdled waters might lash the shores of distant islands where dwell human beings of an unknown race, were circumstances calculated to invest the very air with mystery, to deepen the curiosity, and to strengthen the resolution to persevere in my determination to sail upon this sea and to explore its furthest limits; and as I recalled the struggles which had been made to reach this sea,--through the ice and across the ice,--by generations of brave men, it seemed as if the spirits of these Old Worthies came to encourage me, as their experience had already guided me; and I felt that I had within my grasp "the great and notable thing" which had inspired the zeal of sturdy Frobrisher, and that I had achieved the hope of matchless Parry. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXXII. THE OPEN POLAR SEA.--WIDTH OF THE POLAR BASIN.--BOUNDARIES OF THE POLAR BASIN.--POLAR CURRENTS.--POLAR ICE.--THE ICE-BELT.--ARCTIC NAVIGATION AND DISCOVERY.--THE RUSSIAN SLEDGE EXPLORATIONS.--WRANGEL'S OPEN SEA.--PARRY'S BOAT EXPEDITION.--DR. KANE'S DISCOVERIES.--EXPANSION OF SMITH SOUND.--GENERAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM MY OWN DISCOVERIES AND THOSE OF MY PREDECESSORS. Let us pause here a few moments, in order that we may take a brief survey of the Polar Basin and arrive at a correct understanding of what is meant by the term, "Open Polar Sea," so often used. [Sidenote: BOUNDARIES OF THE POLAR BASIN.]