In fact, I am authorized to send one of its dispatch-boats in search of the 'Viking,' and I feel sure that no one will hesitate to take part in such a work." "I will pay a visit to the marine bureau, and see what I can learn there," remarked Help, Junior.
"Would you like me to accompany you ?" "It is not necessary, and you must be fatigued." "Fatigued! I--at my age ?" "Nevertheless, you had better rest until my return, my dear and ever-young Sylvius." That same day there was a large meeting of captains of merchant and whaling vessels, as well as pilots, in the office of Help Bros .-- an assemblage of men who were still navigating the seas, as well as of those who had retired from active service.
Sylvius Hogg explained the situation briefly but clearly.

He told them the date--May 3d--on which the bottle had been cast into the sea by Ole Kamp, and the date--June 3d--on which it had been picked up by the Danish captain, two hundred miles south-west of Iceland.
The discussion that followed was long and serious.

There was not one of these brave men who were not familiar with the currents of that locality, and upon the direction of these currents they must, of course, chiefly depend for a solution of the problem.
But it was an incontestable fact that at the time of the shipwreck, and during the interval that elapsed between the sailing of the "Viking" from Saint-Pierre-Miquelon, and the discovery of the bottle by the Danish vessel, constant gales from the south-east had disturbed that portion of the Atlantic.

In fact, it was to one of these tempests that the catastrophe must be attributed.

Probably the "Viking," being unable to carry sail in the teeth of the tempest, had been obliged to scud before the windy and it being at this season of the year that the ice from the polar seas begins to make its way down into the Atlantic, it was more than likely that a collision had taken place, and that the "Viking" had been crushed by a floating iceberg, which it was impossible to avoid.
Still, in that case, was it not more than probable that the whole, or a part, of the ship's crew had taken refuge upon one of these ice fields after having placed a quantity of provisions upon it?
If they had really done so, the iceberg, having certainly been driven in a north-westerly direction by the winds which were prevailing at the time, it was not unlikely that the survivors had been able to reach some point on the coast of Greenland, so it was in that direction, and in those seas, that search should be made.
This was the unanimous opinion of these experienced mariners, and there could be no doubt that this was the only feasible plan.