On the North-west Passage. 143 
‘he Hon. Daines Barrington collected much valuable in- 
formation on this head, which he read before the Royal So- 
- ciety 1774.—_From this paper I have extracted the following 
narration. 
“ Mr. George Ware, now living at Erith in Kent, served 
as chief Mate in the year 1754, on board the Sea Nymph, 
Captain James Wilson, when, at the latter end of June, they 
sailed through floating ice from 74° to 81°; but having then 
proceeded beyond theice they pursued the whales to 82° 15' ; 
which latitude was determined by Mr. Ware’s own observa- 
tion. 
As the sea was now perfectly clear, as far as he could dis- 
tinguish with his best glasses, both Mr. Ware and Capt. Wil- 
son had a strong inclination to push further towards the pole ; 
but the common sailors hearing of such being their intention, 
remonstrated, that if they should be able to proceed so far, 
the ship would fall in pieces, as the pole would draw all the 
iron work out of her. 
On this Capt. Wilson and Mr. Ware desisted, as the crew 
had these very singular apprehensions ; especially as they had 
no whales in sight to the northward, which alone would justify 
the attempt to theirowners. Itneed scarcely be observed, how- 
ever, that the notion which prevailed among tne crew, shows 
that the common seamen on board the Greenland ships con- 
ceive, that the sea is open to the pole ; they would other- 
Wise have objected on account of the ice being supposed to 
increase. It should seem also, that the practicability of 
reaching the pole is a point which they often discuss among 
themselves. 
In this same year and month, Mr. John Adams, who now is 
master of a flourishing Academy at Waltham Abbey in Essex, 
was on board of the Unicorn, Capt. Guy, when they anchor- 
ed in Magdalena bay, on the western coast of Spitzbergen, 
and north latitude 79° 35’. They continued in this bay for 
three or four days, and then stood to the northward, when 
the wind freshening from that quarter, but the weather foggy, 
they proceeded with an easy sail for four days expecting to 
meet with fields of ice to which they might make fast ; but 
they did not encounter so much as a piece that floated. On 
the 5th day the wind veered to the westward, the weather 
cleared up, and Mr. Adams had a goed observation, (the sun 
above the Pole) by which he found himself three degrees to 
the north of Hakluyt’s Headland, or in norih latitude 83°— 
Capt. Guy now declared, that he had never been so far to the 
