33° 



APPENDIX I. 



countered in thofe parts of the Frozen Sea which they 

 have unqueftionably failed through ; how much time 

 they employed in making an inconliderable progrefs, and 

 how often their attempts were unfuccefsful : when we 

 refled at the fixme time, that thefe voyages can only be 

 performed in the midft of a fhort fummer, and even 

 then only when particular winds drive the ice into the 

 fea, and leave the fhores lefs obftru6ted ; we fhall reafon- 

 ably conclude, that a navigation, purfued along the 

 coafts in the Frozen Ocean, would probably be ufelefs for 

 commercial purpofes. 



A navigation therefore in the Frozen Ocean, calculated 

 to anfwer any end of general utility, muft (if poflible) be 

 made in an higher latitude, at fome diftance from the 

 Ihores of Nova Zemla and Siberia. And fliould we 

 even grant the poflibility of failing N. E. and Eaft of 

 Nova Zemla, without meeting with any infurmountable 

 obftacles from land or ice ; yet the final completion 

 of a N. E. voyage muffc depend upon the ex- 

 iftence of a free paffage * between the coaft of the 

 ^Tfchutfki and the continent of America. But fuch dif- 



* I have faid ^. free paffage, becaufe If we conclude from the narrative 

 of Defnneff 's voyage, that there really does exifl: fuch a paffage ; yet if 

 that paffage is only occafionally navigable (and the Ruffians do not pre- 

 tend to have paffed it more than once) it can never be of any general 

 and commercial utility. ' 



quilitions 



