STUDY IV. iSl 



water is frcfli. But Linfchotten draws no conclu- 

 fion, any more than Ellis^ from thefe tides of wa- 

 ter half frefh, which defcend from the North; and 

 full of his objeâ:, like the Englifh Navigator, he 

 afcribes them to a Sea, which he fuppofes open to 

 the Eaft, beyond Waigats Strait, through which 

 he propofed to find his way to China. 



His compatriot, the unfortunate William Ba- 

 rents '^, who made the fame voyages in the fame 

 fleet, but in another vefTel, and who ended his days 

 on the northern coafts of Nova Zembla, where he 

 had wintered, found, to the North and to the 

 South of that illand, a perpetual current of ice, 

 fetting in from the Eaft, with a rapidity, which he 

 compares, as Ellis does, to a flu ice. Some of thefe 

 ices were to 36 fathoms of depth under water, and 

 16 fathoms high above the furface. This was at 

 Waigats Strait, in the months of July and Auguft. 

 He found there fome Ruffian filherraen from Pet- 

 zorah, who navigated thefe Seas, covered with 

 floating rocks of ice, in a boat made of the bark 

 of trees fewed together. Thefe poor people made 

 prefents of fat geefe to the Dutch mariners, with 

 ftrong demonftrations of friendfliip ; for calamity 



* Confult the fécond and third Voyages of the Dutch by the 

 North, in the fir ft vohime of the Voyages of the Eaft-India 

 Company.- 



N Î has, 



