noon
Their course carried them to the eastward and as they advanced the character of the scenery changed . What were evidently bays opened up into the land and some of them seemed to run back for miles , cutting deep into the many ranges that supported the plateau of the interior on which they had found the volcano . These bays or inlets were ice covered but it was easy to see that with the advance of summer they would be free of ice . At noon , Frank landed the aeroplane and made an observation . It showed him they were still some distance from the spot near which Captain Hazzard believed the Viking ship was imprisoned . After a hasty lunch , cooked on the stove , the aeroplane once more ascended and kept steadily on her course till nightfall . As dark set in , the boys found themselves at a spot in which the water that lapped the foot of the great Barrier washed -- or would when the ice left it -- at the very bases of the mountains , which here were no more than mere hills .