GQQ DISCOVERIES OF 1615, 



secutlon of discoveries in the north-west. They 

 again fitted out the Discovery for a fourth voyage 

 towards this quarter. Robert Byleth or Bylot, 

 who had been employed on the three former 

 voyages, under Hudson, Button and Gibbons, was 

 now appointed master; and WiUiam Baffin, by 

 whom the account of the voyage is written, his 

 mate and associate. The crew consisted of four- 

 teen men and two boys. With these slender 

 means thev left the Thames on the l6th of April, 

 and saw Greenland on the cast side of Cape 

 Farewell on the 6th of Mav, from which time to 

 the 17th, in proceeding westerly, they were much 

 hampered with ice, and, on that day in parti- 

 cular, passed many great islands of ice, some of 

 which are stated to be more than two hundred 

 feet high above the water. " This," says Baffin, 

 " I proved by one shortly after, which I found to 

 be two hundred and forty foot high, and if report 

 of some men be true, which affirms that there is 

 but one seventh part of the ice above water, then 

 the height of that piece of ice, which I observed, 

 was one hundred and forty fathoms (280 fathoms) 

 or one thousand sixe hundred and eightie foote 

 from the top to the bottome."* On the 27th they 



* Purchas, vol. iii. p. 837. 



Forster, in quoting from Fox, makes a most ridiculous mistake, 

 and after a learned dissertation on the specific gravity of ice, 

 concludes that the mass in question must have been 8,400 feet 

 high ; " which," he adds, as well he might, " is, indeed, a most 

 tremendous height."— Foj/a^e*, S^x. in the North, p. 36l. 



