l6o TtiB FUR COUNTRY, in these latitudes, to hare risen fifteen or twenty feet, it has scarcely risen one ! " " Yes ; but that you accounted for by the irregular distribution of land and the narrowness of the straits." " I tried to account for it, that is all," replied Hobson j " but the day before yesterday I noticed a still more extraordinary pheno- menon, which I cannot even try to explain, and I doubt if the greatest savants could do so either." Mrs Barnett looked inquiringly at Hobson. " What has happened'? " she exclaimed. " Well, the day before yesterday, madam, when the moon was full, and according to the almanac the tide ought to have been very high, the sea did not even rise one foot, as it did before — it did not rise at all."
- ' Perhaps you may be mistaken," observed Mrs Barnett.
" I am not mistaken. I saw it with my own eyes. The day before yesterday, July 4th, there was positively no tide on the coast of Cape Bathurst."
- ' And what do you conclude from that ? " inquired Mrs
Barnett. " I conclude, madam," replied the Lieutenant, " either that the laws of nature are changed, or that this district is very peculiarly situated ... or rather ... I conclude nothing ... I explain nothing ... I am puzzled ... I do not understand it : and therefore . . , therefore I am anxious." Mrs Barnett asked no more questions. Evidently the total absence of tides was as unnatural and inexplicable as would be the absence of the sun from the meridian at noon. Unless the earthquake had so modified the conformation of the coast of the Arctic regions as to account for it — but no, such an idea could not be entertained by any one accustomed to note terrestrial pheno- mena. As for supposing that the Lieutenant could be mistaken in his observations, that was impossible ; and that very day he and Mrs Barnett, by means of beach-marks made on the beach, ascertained beyond all doubt that whereas a year before the sea rose a foot, there was now no tide whatever. The matter was kept a profound secret, as Hobson was unwilling to render his companions anxious. But he might often be seen standing motionless and silent upon the summit of the cape, gazing
