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CHAPTER VIII. 



OF THE ONLY ROUTE BY WHICH SUCCESS MAY BE ATTAINED. 



1 HERE remains only one other direction as yet un- 

 explored, in which to make further attempts for this great 

 desideratum in navigation ; and that is, in Davis's Strait, 

 in a high latitude. 



Bylot and Baffin penetrated very far to the northward — 

 as report says, to the seventy-eighth degree of north latitude. 

 Those navigators, it seems, were desirous of proceeding to 

 the North Pole also ; however that may be, they changed 

 their minds, and, proceeding Avestward, discovered the land 

 on the American side, where they gave name to a sound ; 

 and, without affording any better lights to guide conjecture 

 by, without exploring that sound or the one to the north- 

 westward of it, they forthwith went to the southward, equally 

 unmindful of any opening along the coast, yet occasionally 

 coming in sight of land, and so returned home. 



