The Evidence of the Maps. 77 



"This was our most northern position, lat. 72° oV N., long. 168° W. 

 The ice, as far as it could be seen from the mast-head, trended away AV. 

 S. W. (compass), Commander Moore and the ice-master reporting a water 

 sky to the north of the pack, and a strong ice-blink to the S. W." 



It appears obvious from this statement that the evidence of 

 land existing here is very slight. The appearance of land is 

 omitted from all the late maps. It does not appear on the 

 British Admiralty charts, nor on the charts of our own Hy- 

 drographic Office or Coast Survey. Indeed, on h3^drographic 

 chart 68, a sounding of 54 fathoms, muddy bottom, is shown in 

 this place. It is clear, I think, that land does not exist here. 



Now, on the circumpolar map first mentioned the land shown 

 north-northeast of point Barrow is about 150 miles northeast of 

 the place where Kellett's " appearance of land " is shown. I had 

 supposed before examination that these indications referred- to 

 the same thing, but, having made an examination, I am of 

 opinion that the indication of land shown on the circumpolar 

 map is not derived from Kellett and INIoore, but from some un- 

 published source of information. 



That there is an undiscovered or rather unvisited land some- 

 where north and east of point Barrow is a matter of common 

 talk among the whalers who annually visit this region. Captain 

 John Keenan, of Troy, New York, master of the whaling bark 

 Stamhoul, of Ncav Bedford, reports that he and all his crew saw 

 it while on a whaling voyage some time during the seventies. 

 The Eskimos have traditions of this land and of a visit to it by 

 their fathers " long ago." 



The known facts respecting this hypothetical (or should we 

 not say real?) land are exceedingly meager and all unpublished. 

 It has therefore seemed to me desirable to put these few facts 

 on record, and that no place was more suitable than the journal 

 of a society devoted to the increase and diffusion of geographic 

 knowledge. 



The facts have all come to me through my old friend Captain 

 E. P. Herendeen, who, at ni}^ request, has written the account to 

 which these remarks are intended merely as an introduction. 

 Captain Herendeen, a native of Woods IIoll, Massachusetts, has 

 been for many years engaged in whaling, having entered the Arctic 

 in pursuit of whales as early as 1850, and has since then made 

 more than 9, score of voyages to this region. I have had the 

 pleasure of making three voyages to the northern Pacific and 



