CHAP. V.] CHARTS DEFECTIVE. 329 



cept a fresh layer of snow, and a south-east wind 

 instead of a northerly one. Several large flocks of 

 ducks flew past us to the north, and one flock was 

 seen resting in a small hole of open water about 

 a mile to the south, Land was indistinctly seen 

 abeam. The latitude at noon was 63° 39' N., 

 but the few miles gained to the south would 

 probably be lost again from the change in the 

 direction of the wind. The difficulty which 

 we experienced as to the exact bearings of 

 the land would have been in a great degree 

 obviated, had the observations and charts of the 

 only navigators who, as far as I know, have ever 

 passed between these islands been transmitted to 

 posterity. " Purchas," says Sir John Barrow, in 

 his Chronological History of Voyages into the 

 Arctic Regions, " is blameable, to a certain 

 degree, for the meagreness of Baffin's Journal, 

 and the suppression of a chart which accom- 

 panied it; for he admits, in a marginal note, 

 that * this map of the Author's for this and the 

 former voyage, with the tables of his journale 

 and sayling, were somewhat troublesome and 

 too costly to insert.' " The consequence was, 

 that the true places of these islands were not 

 inserted in the maps ; and though the hiatus 

 thus left has been in part filled up by other sea- 

 men, and among these, recently, by Sir Edward 

 Parry and Captain Lyon, yet from the fact of 



