CLAXXXVI 
Barrin’s Bay. 
Bi AY Rha F QMUN iis BAD Xx. 
Afbeftos, and Gypfum. Granates are not uncommon. Sulphureous Marcafites 
which have more than once deceived the navigators with the opinion of their be- 
ing gold *. The mineral fymptoms of copper, fuch as ftains of blue and green, 
are feen on thefe rocks ; but avarice itfelf will never tempt adventurers to make 
here a trial. 
Davis got as high as lat. 72, and called the country London Coa/t. The 
ftreight he paffed, between the weft of Greenland and the great iflands, is honored 
by his name. He feems to have been engaged among the great iflands ; for he 
fays he failed fixty leagues up a found, found the fea of the fame color with 
the main fea, and faw feveral Whales. He failed through another found to the 
fouth-weft, found ninety fathom water at the entrance; but within could not 
touch ground with three hundred and thirty. He had hopes of having found the 
long-fought-for paflage. The tides rofe fix or feven fathoms ; but, as is frequent 
among iflands, the flood came from fuch variety of places, that he could not 
trace its principal origin +. 
At lat. 72. 30, I muft take as my pilot that great feaman William Baffin, who 
gave name to the great bay I nowenter on. His firft voyage was in 1613; his 
fecond, in which he made the moft effectual trial for the north-weft paflage, was 
in 1616. He pafled through Davis’s Streights. In lat. 70. 20, on the London Coa/t, 
he found the tides rife only eight or nine feet. In Horn Sound, lat. 73.45, he met 
with feveral people t. To the north of that, in 75. 40, was a large and open bay; Cape 
Dudley Digges forms its northern point ; within is We/fenholme Sound; beyond that, 
Whale Sound; and in the extreme north, or bottom of this great bay, is that named by 
Baffin after Sir Thomas Smith, lying in 78 degrees. In thofe three founds were abun- 
dance of Whales; but in the laft the largeft in all this bay. It is highly probable, 
that there are one or more communications from hence to the Icy Sea, through 
which the Whales pafs at certain feafons ; and this (if I may collect from their 
numbers) might be that of their migration fouthward. The diftance into the 
Icy Sea can be but very fmall, but probably blocked up with ice ; or if not, from 
the fudden fhifting of the ice in that fea by the change of wind, the paflage 
muft be attended with too great hazard to be attempted. The ice prevented our 
great feaman from making trial of the tides in this bay, which would have brought 
the matter to greater certainty. He faw multitudes of Walrufes and Seals in 
thefe parts, but no figns of inhabitants. From hence the land trended wefterly, 
© Purchas, ¥ie833.—Egede, 32. + Hackluyt, iii. 102. } Same, 846, 
to 
