2o0 DISCOV^EHIES OF 1631. 



daily and almost hourly ; so that it took them 

 from the 2d of July to the 24th of August to run 

 over 1\ degrees of latitude. On this day they 

 saw Nottingham Island, where the whole sea was 

 covered with ice. On the 26th he asked his 

 officers for their counse4 and advice — in what man- 

 ner he should proceed ; who gave in writing their 

 unanimous opinion that he should repair home- 

 wards ; an opinion which was accordingly adopted, 

 and on the 23d of October he arrived in Bristol 

 roads. 



Captain James's history of his voyage may be 

 called a book of " Lamentation and weeping and 

 great mourning ;" it is one continued strain of diffi- 

 culties and dangers and complainings from the 

 first making of the ice off Cape Farewell, till his 

 return to the same point. The observations it 

 contains are at this time of no use whatever, 

 though it is said that Mr. Boyle derived much in- 

 formation from it in composing his Treatise on 

 Cold. At that time the thermometer had not been 

 brought into use, nor any instrument known to 

 measure the degree of absolute cold ; but the suf- 

 ferings of his crew, from its great intensity, 

 could only have arisen from mismanagement, as 

 the people belonging to the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany pass the winters comfortably enough along 

 the line of coast near to which Charlton Island is 

 situated, and eight or ten degrees farther to the 

 northward. Of the slow dissolution of the ice he 



