An Antarctic Mystery

The Eissphinx (also Lost in the Arctic Ocean, The Adventures of Tom Jeorling or the South Pole reached) is a fantastic novel by the French writer Jules Verne. The original edition was published in 1897 in the publisher Pierre -Jules Hetzel in Paris under the French title Le Sphinx des glaces. Volume I was published on 24 June 1897, Volume II on 11 November 1897. The German -language edition was published in 1898 under the title The Eissphinx. The English title of the novel is An Antarctic Mystery ( also The Sphinx of the Ice Fields).

This book is the " continuation" of Edgar Allan Poe 's only novel, The Report of Arthur Gordon Pym. Be Pym and a sailor Dirk Peters due to a mutiny in their ship Grampus shipwrecked in this, are forced to cannibalism and eventually reach a second ship, the Jane Guy, the Southern Ocean, where they come into contact with natives on the island Tsalal, which all that is white is alien. The crew of the Jane is lured by the natives in an ambush and largely killed, only Pym and Peters manages to escape in a boat of the natives. You get ever further to the south and encounter as they approach the South Pole, a mysterious fog and a gigantic, snow white figure - at this point aborts Arthur Gordon Pym 's report.

Action

Volume 1

The action takes place in 1839, a year after the publication of Poe's book, and eleven years after the disaster in the Antarctic.

Jeorling, a wealthy American has operated on the Kerguelen private study and waits annoyed by boredom, on a ship that brings him back into the home. Len Guy, the captain of the first sailing ship bound for the island group after winter is reluctantly willing to give Jeorling on his Halbrane a passage to Tristan da Cunha. On the way there you can find on a drifting iceberg the body of a seaman, the expel his notes as a member of the crew of the Jane. Obviously, their Captain William Guy and a few of his men who survived the attack on Tsalal.

Len Guy, who has previously mentioned Poe's book against Jeorling, reveals himself as William's brother and wants to use the Halbrane for a rescue expedition. Jeorling remains on board when the crew starts the Falkland Islands, to equip the ship. Here comes a certain Hunt, a mestizo, the crew who wants to join the journey to the south.

Favorable weather allowed the Halbrane, the pack ice belt to break quickly, behind which they find ice-free water and a mild climate, as described by Pym. Without major problems they find Bennets island and finally Tsalal itself

The island has changed a lot over Pym's description. After an apparently recent natural disaster it appears as plowed and is uninhabited. Also from the rock drawings in which Pym reported is nothing more to find. From the people of the Jane Guy, there is no trace except the collar and the remains of Pym's dog Tiger. Numerous skeletons that can be found on the island, probably came from natives, who, however, already long must have died before the disaster.

Volume 2

Guy decides not to give up but still further south to look for his brother. A part of the crew with a certain Hearne as a speaker wants to refuse, and can be retuned only by the prospect of a high premium.

When the Halbrane Continuing towards the south, it turns out that Hunt none other than Dirk Peters: He and Pym were separated on their journey to the south, and only Peters returned with Pym's diary, which was eventually released heavily decorated by Poe. Peters wants to find definitely Pym. He had assumed the false identity of shame about the crimes committed on the Grampus cannibalism.

The Halbrane finally runs on an iceberg and lost. With only a boat that is too small to hold all the survivors, but enough inventories, Guy and his people condemned to passively drift with the iceberg. Having so even passed the South Pole and back drive to the north of the iceberg stranded still within the pack ice belt to a hitherto unknown land mass. The sailors sent to this coast to spend the winter, as Hearne and his men steal the remaining boat and wants to escape on their own.

A little later drives the camp of the men of the Halbrane a boat in the design of the natives over. Peters reacts as the first, jumping into the water and ensures the boat. To everyone 's surprise, he finds in William Guy and his people starved exhausted and half took a desperate attempt to escape to the north.

They say that Pym's dog Tiger reappeared soon after the attack on Tsalal ( but only after the escape of Pym and Peters), who had become apparent rabid. Aggressive he bit the natives, under which the hitherto unknown disease spread rapidly. The surviving natives fled to the neighboring islands, so that William Guy and his crew were able to live unmolested on Tsalal until an earthquake devastated the island. Since the neighboring islands were devastated remained Guys people no way as the way north to try.

The men of the Jane to be nursed back to health, then they all decide to venture to the natives boat ride to the north. On the way they encounter strange magnetic phenomena that culminate in the " Eissphinx ", one of a sphinx -like rock that has been immense, " charged" by the Earth's magnetic field focused to the poles particle streams from the sun.

Here they find the bodies of Hearne and his men, where the incredibly strong magnetic field of Eissphinx was undoing: The iron parts of their boat were attracted by the Sphinx, until it crashed on their rocks. Guy and the others escape this fate only because their native boat was built without metal parts.

At the feet of Eissphinx they find the corpse Pym, who died after the metal of the musket which he carried slung, was magnetically attracted. Pym could no longer exempt from the Eissphinx and died miserably. Peters takes on the spot literally from grief.

The survivors continue the tour without much further incident continued, eventually reach the open sea and rescued by the American three-master Tasman which will bring to Melbourne.

"Plot Hole"

Pym's dog Tiger is no longer mentioned in Arthur Gordon Pym, after Pym and Peters have overpowered the mutineers on the Grampus; it is likely that he was killed in the subsequent storm.

When he re-emerges in this book on Tsalal, he would have survived with Pym and Peters. But this would in turn mean that the castaways - as out of supplies on the wreck of the Grampus - rather one of their sacrificed and eaten than to kill the dog and eat.