348 CAPTAIN SABINE'S LETTER. 



question, which Mr. Crowe, his Majesty's Vice- 

 Consul at Hammerfast, the establisher and pro- 

 prietor of a British settlement at Spitzbergen, 

 has obtained in the last summer. The following 

 extracts are from a communication which Mr. 

 Crowe has made to Lord Melville : 



" It having been mentioned to me by Captain 

 Sabine, in a conservation I had with him pre- 

 viously to my leaving England last summer, that 

 the Admiralty might have it in contemplation to 

 send a vessel in the direction of Spitzbergen, for 

 certain scientific objects, and that any information 

 would be acceptable which might tend to facili- 

 tate the progress of such a vessel, I directed the 

 master of a small cutter of forty tons, who was to 

 sail from Hammerfast, to the settlement at Ice 

 Sound, to penetrate up Wyde Jansz Water, an 

 arm of the sea which intersects Spitzbergen in a 

 north and south direction, respecting the free 

 navigation of which Captain Sabine had expressed 

 a wish to be informed. The vessel accordingly did 

 ascend to the parallel of Ice Sound (78°), and the 

 master reports it to have been perfectly free from 

 ice. He next went round the west coast as far as 

 Walden's Island, adjoining the Seven Islands, with- 

 out meeting with any impediment ; and although 

 many shoals of ice were visible from thence, there 

 were many open channels through which he 



