APPENDIX. 133 



No. III. 



During the publication of this little work, I was 

 favoured, through the medium of a friend, with 

 some very important remarks made by a Gentle- 

 man of great nautical skill and experience, in the 

 year 1814, on board his Majesty's ship Sybyll, 

 while in the North Seas, for the protection of the 

 Greenland fishery. 



The first point to which he alludes, is the va- 

 riation of the compass ; and, respecting it, he ob- 

 serves, " Being anxious that every thing possible 

 should be done for the improvement of navigation, 

 I determined, while in those high latitudes, to 

 take every opportunity of observing to what ex- 

 tent the variation of the compass might be affect- 

 ed by the ship's course. A paper containing 

 Captain Flinders's observations on the same sub- 

 ject, had previously been sent to me by the Lords 

 of the Admiralty ; and as these observations had 

 chiefly been made in high southern latitudes, it 

 became doubly important to ascertain whether 

 the same laws were followed in high northern la- 

 titudes. Experience has completely proved that 

 they are ; and, in fact, it is some years since I 

 ascertained that the course down the English Chan- 



