I. I. Hayes on the Passage to the North Pole. 387 
sueceed better. The highest latitude of Phipps was 80° 48’, of 
Tschelschagoff 80° 30’, of Buchan and Franklin 80° 82’, of Clav- 
ering 80° 20. They were all arrested by the ice-barrier stretch- 
_. Ing across from Nova Zembla to Greenland. Parry did not 
make his greatest northing by water.. When arrested off Hak- 
 luyt Headland to the northwest of Spitzbergen he abandoned 
ls vessel and boldly struck out with sledge boats over the ice; 
but reaching to 82° 45’ he found the current carrying him upon 
18 frozen raft to the southward, and unable longer to stem the 
ift he was compelled to return. Of the recent navigators, the 
resbys have sailed nearest to the pole, and Prof. Leslie places 
m above all others of any time, declaring “the statements of 
ine Dutch, and other navigators, who boast of having gone 
hearer, to be subject to great doubt.” In 1806 these gentlemen, 
the father as captain and the son as mate of a whale ship, reached 
the parallel of 81° 30’ in'the meridian 19° E. longitude, finding 
the sea open in every direction as far as could be seen from the 
“crow’s nest.” Tt is unfortunate that duty to their employers 
should have compelled their return to the fishing grounds of 
Spitzbergen, 
~The history of early maritime discoveries has always much 
of the true and of the marvellous so closely associated, that it 
Snot an easy task to separate them, and it is to be regretted 
Mat we are not in possession of data which will enable us to 
termine what is true and what is false of these Arctic records, 
<ve proved unreliability of some of them may very naturally 
Make us suspicious of the whole. One of the instances brought 
forward by Mr. Haskins is that of Davis or Davies, who, it is 
sserted by Camden, reached to latitude 83°. Now it is well 
n that the efforts of this bold navigator were confined ‘to 
annel which bears his name, and through which he could 
have passed so far as 83°. ' Tt is evident from his descrip- 
: Probable; these are Capt. Clarke, said to have reached 81° 80’, 
during which Phipps made his effort to reach the Pole, and 
Skirting the ice barrier ‘through eighteen degrees of longitude, 
he at no time, as already stated, penetrated beyond 80 48 ; 
_ Whatever estimate however we may place upon these early 
8, there can be no doubt but that the Spitzbergen sea is 
