1612. JAMES HALL. 201 



merchant-adventurers of London, of whom Mr. 

 Alderman Cockin appears to have been one of the 

 principal partners ; but it proved fatal to the per- 

 severing commander of this expedition, who was 

 mortally w^ounded by the dart of an Esquimaux 

 on the coast of Greenland. The little that ig 

 known of this voyage appears to have been written 

 by William Baffin; and it is chiefly remarkable for 

 its being the first on record, in which a method is 

 laid down, as then practised by him, for determining 

 the longitude at sea by an observation of the 

 heavenly bodies ; and the method he made use of 

 sufficiently proves that Baffin possessed a very con- 

 siderable degree of knowledge in the theory as 

 well as practice of navigation. On an island in 

 Cockin's Sound he first determined, by various 

 observations of the sun, both above and below" the 

 pole, an exact meridian line; he says, "on the 

 9th of July I went on shoare the island, being a 

 faire morning, and observed till the moone came 

 just upon the meridian. At which very instant I 

 observed the sunnes height, and found it 8 degrees 

 53 minutes north, in the elevation of the pole 65 

 degrees 20 minutes. By the w^hich, w^orking by 

 the doctrine of sphericall triangles, having the 

 three sides given, to w it, the complement of the 

 pole's elevation; the complement of the i^lme- 

 canter; and the complement of the sunnes decli- 

 nation ; to find out the quantity of the angle at 

 the pole: I say, by this working, I found it to be 



