284 JONAS POOLE. 



a.d. Foul Sound, Deer Sound, Close Cove, and several 

 other places, which may be seen in any modern 

 charts of this coast. In some of these places 

 he found the weather so mild that he observes, 

 " A passage may be as soon attayned this way 

 by the Pole as any unknowne way whatsoever, 

 by reason the sun doth give a great heat in 

 this climate." He is also of opinion that the 

 island is habitable, for if the deer, of which 

 he saw and killed many, " having nothing but 

 the rocks for a house, and the starry canopie for 

 a covering, doe live here, why may not man ?" 



Notwithstanding Poole's remark about the 

 likelihood of the passage this way, we do not 

 find him persevering in any endeavour to effect 

 it, for, after he had seen the ice to the northward 

 of his farthest point, he returned without making 

 any second attempt, and arrived in England 

 in the end of August. 

 i6ii. In the following year, Poole's services were 

 engaged for a period of years by the Muscovy 

 Company, for the purpose, as it would appear, 

 of making discoveries. 



The commission given to him is thus tran- 

 scribed in Purchas 1 Pilgrims : * — " Inasmuch as it 

 hath pleased Almighty God, through the industry 

 of yourself and others, to discover unto our 

 nation a land, lying in 80° toward the North 



* Vol. iii. p. 707. 



