86 R. W. Haskins on the Open North Polar Sea. 
credited with having reached only 66° 40’ north latitude, while — 
Camden, in his annals of Elizabeth, asserts that Davis attained 
to 83°. - 
Moxon’s account of a Dutch ship that sailed to the pole, and — 
Greenland company, sailed unto the north pole, and came back 
again. Whereupon (his relation being novel to me) I entered 
into discourse with him, and seemed to question the truth of 
what he said, but he did insure me that it was true, and that the 
ship was then in Amsterdam, and many of the seamen belong: — 
ing to her, to justify the truth of it; and told me, moreover, that 
they had sailed two degrees beyond the pole. I asked himif | 
they found no land nor islands about the pole? He told me no, 
there was a free and open sea. J asked him if they did not meet — 
with a great deal of ice? He told me no, they saw no ice. a 
asked him what weather they had there? and he told me fine, — 
warm weather. i 
This ‘conversation, &c. at Amsterdam was about the year 1624, 
at which time the vessel had lately returned. Moxon, who rela | 
ted this statement, was not an obscure nor an illiterate individual, — 
since in the title to his published statement he calls himself Fel 
_ low of the Royal Society, and Barrington states that he was Hy- 
drographer to Charles the Second, and author of several scientifie _ 
rs. It was probably his professional calling, therefore, that 
fixed his attention upon this subject, and thus caused his inqul — 
ries at Amsterdam. A map was early published by the Acad: — 
emy of Sciences at Berlin, which places a ship at the pole, & — 
having arrived there, according to the Dutch accounts. We are — 
not aware that the date of this map is preserved, but it seems — 
probable that one of the authorities for that ship’s position is the 
account of Moxon, cited above. a 
ood sailed on the discovery of a northeast passage to Japa) — 
in 1676; and in his account of his voyage, which he suds — 
quently sent to the press, he says he was chiefly induced to the 
ager es by the account given by Capt. Goulden, of a Dutch — 
ship, who had made some thirty voyages'to Greenland. This 
te 
