Chap. II. COMMANDER JOHN ROSS. 41 



ing his discoveries from the records of geography, 

 the groundless assertion is itself no more than " a 

 phantom of the imagination." Purchas excuses 

 himself for not publishing his chart and tables on 

 account of the expense; but expunging his dis- 

 coveries, is a discovery of Commander Ross, and 

 there let it remain* 



Hitherto Ross had carefully avoided approaching 

 any of these sounds within forty, fifty, or sixty miles, 

 and consequently could not, or did not, send a boat 

 to look into any of them, and yet he boasts of 

 exploring and having re-discovered Baffin's Bay. 

 However, in proceeding down the western coast, 

 and the weather being foggy, he found himself 

 unawares nearer to the shore than was supposed, and 

 perhaps wished; in fact he was just at the mouth 

 of the only remaining, and by far the largest and 

 most remarkable, as well as, from its position, the 

 most important, sound or opening of any that had 

 been seen on either coast — this was what Baffin has 

 called Sir James Lancaster's Sound. There was 

 here, at least, no ice to choke it up ; none in the 

 vicinity of it ; the soundings, without it, are marked 

 1000 fathoms, within it, 660 to 674 fathoms; no 

 appearance of any bottom wasiiere pretended to have 

 been seen, and altogether it was utterly impossible 



* Pilkington had the impertinence to call Baffin an impostor, 

 but all that was ever known and published, of Baffin's discoveries, 

 have been preserved. 



