DKSCUIPTION OK GREENLAND. 237 



findinp,- tlicni melted, the heavy storms Avhich gather upon 

 these waters, the inexperience of the routes, the harren parts 

 that are found there, and, what is worse, the fact of there being 

 no help and no retreat in these deserts ; — all these difficulties 

 accumulated frustrate the designs of inquiring persons, and 

 deprive them of the means of discovering the facts of which 

 they are in search. The same difficulties, and, consequently, 

 the same uncertainties, are met with for the second doubt 

 as for the first ; and we should not be able any better to 

 determine that Greenland was or was not part of the conti- 

 nent of America. 



This is what I propose to show you lierc in the nar- 

 rative Avhich I promised you of the Danish captain, Jean 

 Munck, who attempted, as I have told you, a passage to the 

 cast, by the north-west coast between America and Greenland. 

 I shall not be wandering from my subject in writing you this 

 narration, for besides being amusing, it refers to Greenland 

 and the adjacent islands. The present king of Norway 

 ordered Captain Munck to go and seek out a passage to 

 the East Indies by a strait and a sea which separates America 

 from Greenland. An English captain named Pludson, had 

 discovered this strait and this sea some time before, with the 

 same design, but he Avas lost in this navigation, and it was 

 never known how. It is certain that if he had the boldness 

 of Icarus to fly by an unknown route, his feathers would have 

 been frozen quicker than they would have thawed in this 

 adventurous undertaking. His enterprise had this in common 

 with that of Icarus, that this strait and this sea bore after- 

 wards the names of Hudson's Strait and Hudson's Sea. 



Captain Munck left the Sound for this voyage May 16th, 

 1619, with two vessels, that the king of Norway had given 

 him. There were forty-eight men in the larger vessel, and 

 sixteen in the smaller, which was a frigate. He arrived on 

 the 20th of the following June at the cape called in the 

 Danish language Farvel, in Latin, Cape Vale, or in French, 



