INSTANCES of NAVIGATORS 



WHO HAVE REACHED 



HIGH NORTHERN LATITUDES. 

 Read at a Meeting of the Royal Society, May 19, 1 774. 



AS I was the unworthy propofer of the voyage towards the" 

 North Pole, which the Council of the Royal Society re- 

 commended to the Board of Admiralty, I think it my duty to lay 

 before the Society fuch intelligence as I have happened to procure 

 with regard to navigators having reached high Northern lati- 

 tudes a ; becaufe fome of thefe accounts feem to promife, that we 

 may proceed further towards the Pole than the very able 

 Officers who were fent on this deftination laft year were per- 

 mitted to penetrate, notwithftanding their repeated efforts to pafs 

 beyond eighty degrees and an half. 



I (hall begin, however, by making an obfervation or two with 

 regard to the Greenland fiihery, which will in a great meafure 

 account for our not being able to procure many inftances of 

 nearer approaches to the Pole than the Northern parts of Spitz- 

 bergen. 



Fifty years ago fuch apprehenfions were entertained of navi- 

 gating even in the loofe, or what is called failing ice, that the 



a It is well known that there are many fuch accounts in print, but to 

 thefe I need not refer the Society. 



B crews 



