NORTHERN PASSAGE TO INDIA. 7 



Danish settlement at Disco, is a mahogany table 

 made out of a plank which was drifted thither by 

 the current, and is now in the possession of the go- 

 vernor. A tree of logwood was also picked up not 

 far from the same place. Another log of mahogany 

 was picked up at sea by Admiral Lowenorn, in 

 1786, when on his voyage attempting the re-dis- 

 covery of Old Greenland. This piece of wood, 

 which was so large that they were obliged to saw it 

 in two before they could get it on board, they found 

 within sight of the coast of Greenland, in latitude 

 65'' li; longitude 35° 8' west of Paris. It was 

 much perforated by worms, which circumstance the 

 Admiral conceived might assist in giving it suffi 

 cient buoyancy to swim in the water *. 



These logs of wood, the produce of the Isthmus 

 which connects North and South America, could 

 only reach the places where they were severally 

 found, by floating up the west coast of America, 

 towards the north, through Behring's Strait, and so 

 along the northern face of Asia or America, or 

 across the Northern Pole. Had they come by the 

 way of the Gulf of Mexico, they might have floated 

 to the banks of Newfoundland, by the action of the 

 Gulf Stream, and been carried from thence to any 

 part of the western shore of Europe ; but they could 

 not possibly have passed northward from Newfound- 



* Quarterly Review, No. 36. p. 4i5. 



