HUDSON. 279 



it with the text of Barentz, and De Veer, Hudson, 

 and others, notwithstanding their egregious mis- 

 takes in bearings and distances, we are able to 

 trace almost every bay and promontory which they 

 describe. Such remarkable incidents as this, like 

 that which was found to exist between the 

 modern survey of Baffin's Bay and the outline 

 given by its first discoverer, gives additional 

 value to the records of our early navigators, 

 whose statements have been often discredited, 

 from the very erroneous situation they have 

 assigned to their discoveries, and from the errors 

 into which they have unavoidably fallen, from 

 the want of those instruments necessary to the 

 determination of their position, but many of which 

 the more they have been examined and compared 

 with recent surveys, the higher they have risen 

 in public estimation. 



Hudson was very much disappointed at finding 

 the strait did not admit of a passage to the 

 eastward, as he had spent several days in its 

 examination. He was also much concerned to 

 find that the morses, from which he had at first 

 great expectations, had all quitted the coast and 

 taken to the ice in the offing/ or had, according 

 to Hudson's conjecture, gone to Willoughby's 

 Land. He seems now to have quite given up 

 all thoughts of the Waigatz, and to have adopted 



A.D. 



1608. 



