[ '9 ] 



Northern latitudes, from which thefe maffes of ice are fuppofed 

 to have floated ? 



Was it becaufe the more one advances towards the Pole, vegeta- 

 tion invariably is diminifhed ? — But this is not the fact. 



Nova Zembla, fituated only in N. lat. 76, produces not even 

 any forts of grafs w ; fo that the only quadrupeds which frequent 

 it are foxes and bears, both of which are carnivorous. In the 

 Northern parts of Spitzbergen, on the other hand, they have 

 reyn-deer, which are often exceffively fat ; and Mr. Grey men- 

 tions three or four plants, which flower there during the fum- 

 mer \ 



Was it becaufe no one had ever conceived it poffible to pro- 

 ceed fo far as the Pole 7 ? 



Thorne, however, a merchant of Briftol, had made fuch a 

 propofal in the reign of Henry VIII. and I mall now alfo mew, 

 that not only Mr. Oldenburgh's contemporaries continued to be- 

 lieve fuch a voyage to be feaflble, but many great names in fcience 

 who lived after him. 



Wood failed on the difcovery of a N. E. paffage to Japan in 

 1676 ; and, in the publication of his voyage, he hath ftated the 

 grounds upon which he conceived fuch a voyage to be practica- 

 ble ; the ftrongeft of all which, perhaps, is the relation of Cap- 

 tain Goulden, with regard to a Dutch lhip having reached N. lat. 

 89. Though this account hath often been referred to, I do not 

 recollect to have feen it Hated with all the circumftances which 



w Purchas, vol. I. p. 479. 



x Dr. Birch's Hift. R. Soc. vol. I. p. 202. et feq. 



y A Map of the Northern Hemifphere, publifhed at Berlin ( under the 

 direction of the Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres), places a fhip 

 at the Pole, as having arrived there according to the Dutch accounts. 



feem 



