94 DISCOVElllES OF 1578. 



man should look to the lading of his own ship 

 witli ore, and be in readiness to set homeward by 

 a certain day, which it appears was the following 

 one or 31st August. After a stormy passage, in 

 which it is stated that "many of the fleete were 

 dangerously distressed, and were severed almost all 

 asunder," they all arrived at various ports of 

 England, about the 1st of October, with the loss 

 by death of about forty persons.^ 



The Busse of Bridgewater, in her homeward pas- 

 sage, fell in with a large island to the south-east 

 of Friesland, in latitude 57^°, which had never 

 before been discovered, and sailed three days along 

 the coast, the land appearing to be fertile, full of 

 wood, and a fine champaign country. On this 

 authority the island was laid down on our charts ; 

 but was never afterwards seen, and certainly does 

 not exist ; though a bank has recently been 

 sounded upon, which has revived the idea of the 

 Friesland of Zeno and the Busse of Bridgewater 

 having been swallowed up by an earthquake. 



It is somewhat remarkable, that a man of Fro- 

 bisher's sagacity, who in his first voyage soon 

 discovered that the open and deep sea does not 

 freeze, but that the ice originates in rivers, bays, 

 and creeks, and floats about till it clings by the 

 land, or is forced into narrow and shallow straits, 

 should have persevered in struggling among straits 

 and ice, when he knew he had an open sea 



* Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iij. p. 39- 



