PREMIUMS FOR POLAR DISCOVERIES. 51 



whereas, had a proportionate reward been offered 

 for a proportionate success, he would have had every 

 encouragement to make the attempt. In the ses- 

 sion of 1818, this subject was brought before Par- 

 liament, and the law respecting rewards for dis- 

 coveries in the Polar Seas, &c. underwent revi- 

 sion, and was modified and improved by the pas- 

 sing of a new act. After the nomination of 

 *' commissioners for discovering the longitude at 

 sea," and for " judging all proposals, experiments 

 and improvements relating to the same, and for 

 rewarding persons making useful discoveries and 

 improvements in or connected with navigation," — 

 this act offers encouragements for the discovery 

 of the longitude, and other useful inventions tend- 

 ing towards the improvement of navigation, and 

 then gives the regulations and conditions on 

 which rewards may be claimed for finding a nor- 

 thern passage into the Pacific, and for approach- 

 ing within a degree of the North Pole, or for ac- 

 complishing certain proportions of the said passage, 

 or approach. The act still offers a reward of 

 20,000 /. to the owners of such ship or ships, if be- 

 longing to subjects, or to the commanders, officers, 

 seamen and marines, of such ships, if belonging to 

 his ISIajesty, which shall first find out and sail 

 through any passage between the Atlantic and 

 Pacific Oceans, in any direction or parallel of the 

 Northern Hemisphere *. And a reward of 5000 /. 



* A^t 5Sth Geo. III. c. 20. ^ 10. 



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