54 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. II. 



rank on his return was easily acquired, being ob- 

 tained by a few months' voyage of pleasure round 

 the shores of Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay, which 

 had been performed centuries ago, and somewhat 

 better, in little ships of thirty to fifty tons. It is a 

 voyage which any two of the Yacht Club would 

 easily accomplish in five months, and during that 

 time might run far enough up Sir Thomas Smith's 

 Sound, to ascertain the insularity, or otherwise, of 

 Old Greenland. There are, among the members 

 of that club, gentlemen sufficiently high spirited 

 to undertake to solve that national question, and 

 prove the accuracy of old Burleigh, and thus remove 

 a blot from the geography of Northern Europe, for 

 a part of that division of the globe Greenland is now 

 ascertained to be. There is nothing to be appre- 

 hended from the severity of the temperature. 

 During the three or four months that the ships of 

 the present voyage were in the Arctic seas, the 

 thermometer never fell below 26J°; the general 

 average was between 35° and 37°; no deaths took 

 place, and scarcely a day's illness. Parry, by 

 anticipation, doubts not that a ship, provided with 

 sufficient food, warm clothing, and fuel, "might 

 winter in the highest latitude we have been in, 

 without suffering materially either from cold or dis- 

 ease;" he very soon proved it to be so. 



In taking leave of Ross, it may be stated that 

 the observations made on his strange conduct have 



