1531. THOMAS JAMES. 251 



has the following observ^ation : — •" I have in July, 

 and in the beginning of August, taken some of the 

 ice into the ship and cut it square, two feet, and 

 put it into the boat where the sun shone, with a 

 very strong reflection about it, and notwithstand- 

 ing the warmth of the ship, for we kept a good 

 fire, and all our breathings and motion, it would not 

 melt in eight or ten days. It was our practice, 

 where we should be two days, to get her fast to a 

 piece of ice, to set marks to it, to see how it con- 

 sumed, but it yielded us small hope of dissolving; 

 we could not, in that time, perceive any diminu- 

 tion by the sinking of it, or otherwise; neverthe- 

 less I think that it is ruined by storms, or con- 

 sumed by heat some years, or else the bay would 

 be choked up ; but I confess these secrets of nature 

 are past my comprehension."* 



With regard to discovery, James contributed 

 nothing to what former navigators had effected; 

 yet he boldly asserts the improbabiJity of a north- 

 Avest passage, for reasons which he might just as 

 well have assigned prior to his voyage, and spared 

 himself and his people the sufferings they under- 

 went on Charlton Island, ^ut, as Doctor Camp- 

 bell has observed, '' all the difficulties and discou- 

 ragements, which, from too strong a sense of his 

 own disappointment, Captain James has conjured 

 up, sink to nothing, when duly considered and 

 compared with the circumstances that later disco- 



* Harris's Collect. ofVoy. and Travels^ vol. ii. p. 428. 



