A.D. 



1773. 



328 HON. CAPTAIN PHIPPS. 



Phipps' case, and partly to the improved method by 

 which results are now deduced from these delicate 

 experiments ; he having been able to observe but 

 two passages of the opposite limbs of the sun, 

 whilst a considerable number of these transits are 

 necessary to give accuracy to observations involving 

 so much delicacy and precision. His magnetical 

 observations were more satisfactory. 



On the 19th August the expedition quitted 

 Spitzbergen, and sailed along the edge of the ice 

 to the westward until the 23rd, when Captain 

 Phipps observes, that " the season was so very far 

 advanced, and fogs, as well as gales of wind, so 

 much to be expected, that nothing more could now 

 have been done, had anything been left untried," 

 and he accordingly directed the course of his expe- 

 dition for England, where it arrived on the 29th 

 September. 



The expedition of Captain Phipps ends what 

 may properly be considered early Arctic voyages, 

 the next undertaking being that by Captain 

 Buchan, already narrated. These early enter- 

 prises, which may be appropriately termed the 

 pioneers of the way, have tended to remove that 

 veil of obscurity which, previously, hung over 

 the geography, and indeed over all the pheno- 

 mena of the Arctic regions. Before these all 

 was darkness and terror; all beyond the North 



