THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE ad. 



[576. 



If you seeke the advise herein of such as make pro- Ob. 2. 

 fession in Cosmographie, Ptolome the father of Geo- 

 graphic, and his eldest children, will answere by their 

 mappes with a negative, concluding most of the Sea 

 within the land, and making an ende of the world North- 

 ward, neere the 63. degree. The same opinion, when 

 learning chiefly florished, was received in the Romanes 

 time, as by their Poets writings it may appeare : tibi 

 serviat ultima Thyle, said Virgil, being of opinion, that 

 Island was the extreme part of the world habitable toward 

 the North. Joseph Moletius an Italian, and Mercator 

 a Germaine, for knowledge men able to be compared with 

 the best Geographers of our time, the one in his halfe 

 Spheres of the whole world, the other in some of his 

 great globes, have continued the West Indies land, even 

 to the North Pole, and consequently, cut off all passage 

 by sea that way. 



The same doctors, Mercator in other of his globes 

 and mappes, Moletius in his sea Carde, neverthelesse 

 doubting of so great continuance of the former continent, 

 have opened a gulfe betwixt the West Indies and the 

 extreame Northerne land : but such a one, that either 

 is not to be travelled for the causes in the first objection 

 alledged, or cleane shut up from us in Europe by 

 Groenland : the South ende whereof Moletius maketh 

 firme land with America, the North part continent with 

 Lappeland and Norway. 



Thirdly, the greatest favourers of this voyage can not Ob. 3. 

 denie, but that if any such passage be, it lieth subject 

 unto yce and snow for the most part of the yeere, 

 whereas it standeth in the edge of the frostie Zone. 

 Before the Sunne hath warmed the ayre, and dissolved 

 the yce, eche one well knoweth that there can be no 

 sailing: the yce once broken through the continuall 

 abode the sunne maketh a certaine season in those parts, 

 how shall it be possible for so weake a vessel as a shippe 

 is, to holde out amid whole Islands, as it were of yce 

 continually beating on eche side, and at the mouth of 

 vii 193 N 



