THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 4 1 



historic times who penetrated to Arctic polar regions was Sebastian 

 Cabot, who, in 1498, sought a north-west passage from Europe to 

 China and the Indies. Considering the date, and the state of navi- 

 gation at that period, this was perhaps the boldest attempt on 

 record. 



Sebastian Cabot reached as high as Hudson's Bay, but a mutiny 

 of his sailors forced him to retrace his steps. In 1500, Gaspard de 

 Cortereal discovered Labrador; in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby Nova 

 Zembla, and Chancellor the White Sea about the same time. 

 Davis visited in 1585 the west coast of Greenland, and two years 

 later he discovered the strait which bears his name. In 1596 

 Barentz discovered Spitzbergen, which was again seen by Hendrich 

 Hudson, who sailed up to and beyond the eighty-second parallel. 

 Three years later, Hudson gave his name to the great Labrador Baj^, 

 but he could get no farther. His crew revolted, and he was left in 

 the ship's launch with his son, seven sailors, and the carpenter^ who 

 remained faithful ; one by one they died, and thus perished one of 

 our greatest navigators. 



The Island of Jan Mayen was discovered in 1 6 1 1 ; the channel 

 which Baffin took for a bay, and which bears his name, was dis- 

 covered in 16 16. Behring discovered, in his first voyage in 1727, 

 the strait which separates Siberia from America ; he sailed through 

 it in 1 741, but his ship was stranded, and he himself died of scor- 

 butic disease. 



In the year 177 1 the Polar Sea was discovered by Hearne, a fur 

 merchant ; it was explored long after by Mackenzie. 



From the year 1810, when Sir John Ross, Franklin, and Parry, 

 turned their attention to the Arctic regions, expeditions to the Polar 

 Seas rapidly succeeded each other. 



In his first voyage, made in 1818, Sir John Ross was led to think 

 that Lancaster Sound was closed by a chain of mountains, which he 

 called the Croker Mountains ; but in the following year Captain 

 Parry, in command of two ships, the Heda and Griper, discovered 

 that this was an error. This celebrated navigator discovered Barrow's 

 Straits, Wellington Channel, and Prince Regent Inlet, Cornwallis, 

 Sir Byam Martin, and Melville Islands, to which the name of Parry's 

 Archipelago has been given. In this short voyage he gathered more 

 new results than were obtained by his successors during the next 

 forty years. He was the first to traverse these seas. Upon Sir 

 Byam Martin Island he discovered and described the ruins of some 

 ancient habitations of the Esquimaux. He passed the winter on 

 Melville Island. In order to attain his chosen anchorage in Winter's 



