r 34 ] 



the mountain's being increafed or diminifhed gradually to the eye: 

 of the obferver. 



My fecond previous remark mail be, with regard to. all in- - 

 ftances of reaching high Northern latitudes, for which the autho- 

 rity of the fhip's journal may be required, that it is almoft im- 

 poflible to procure this fort of evidence, except the voyages have 

 been recent ; not only for the reafons I have given in my former 

 paper, but becaufe I find, that. if the fhip's journal is not wanted 

 by the owners in a year or two (which feldom happens) it is 

 afterwards considered as wafte paper. . 



Without the leaft impeachment alfo of the knowledge in na- 

 vigation of the Greenland mailers, when they are in the actual _ 

 purfuit of fr/h, they do not trouble themfelves about their longi- 

 tude or latitudes they are not bound by their mftructions to fail 

 to any particular point, and their only object is to catch as many 

 whales as poffible ; the fhip's fituation therefore, at fuch time, 

 becomes a matter of perfect indifference. It will appear, how- 

 ever, that they not only keep their reckonings, but . obferve,, 

 when they are not thus employed in fifhing. . 



Having made thefe previous remarks, I fhall now proceed to 

 lay before the Society, fuch inftances of navigators having pene- 

 trated beyond 80*-, as I have happened to procure fince the read- 

 ing of my former paper on this fubject, in May laft. 



James Hutton (then belonging to the fhip London, Captain 

 Guy) was, thirty years ago, in N.'lat. 8if, as both the captain 

 and mate informed him ; but did not obferve himfelf. A very 

 intelligent fea officer was fo good as to take from him this ac- 

 count, together with the following particulars, which perhaps 

 may be interefting to Greenland navigators. 



Hutton hath been employed in the whale nihery nearly thefe 

 forty years, during which he hath been feveral times at the 

 Seven Iflands, and the Waygat Straits. In fome of thefe voyages 

 tjie fea hath been perfectly clear from ice, and at other times it 



hath 



