[ 7' ] 



Pole, without feeling any fuch inconvenience. The city of 

 Mofcow is in the fame latitude with that of Edinburgh, and yet 

 in winter the weather is almoft as fevere there as in Charlton 

 Ifland. Nova Zembla hath no foil, herbage, or animals ; and 

 yet in Spitzbergen, in fix degrees higher latitude, there are all 

 three ; and, on the top of the mountains in the moft Northern 

 part, men ftrip themfelves of their fhirts that they may cool 

 their bodies s . The celebrated Mr. Boyle, from thefe and many 

 other inftances, rejected the long received notion that the Pole 

 was the principle of cold. Captain Jonas Poole, who in 1610 

 failed in a veifel of feventy tons to make difcoveries towards the 

 North, found the weather warm in near feventy-nine degrees of 

 latitude, whilfr, the ponds and lakes were unfrozen, which put 

 him in hopes of finding a mild fummer, and led him to be- 

 lieve, that a paffage might be as foon found by the' Pole as any 

 other way whatever; and for this reafon, that the Sun gave a 

 great heat there, and that the ice was not near lb thick as what 

 he had met with in the latitude of feventy-three c . Indeed, the 

 Dutchmen, who pretend to have advanced within a degree of the 

 Pole, faid it was as hot there as in the fummer at Amfterdam. 



In thefe Northern voyages we hear very much of ice, and 

 there is no doubt that vefTels are very much hindered and in- 

 commoded thereby. But after all, it is, in the opinion of able 

 and experienced feamen, more formidable in appearance than fatal 

 in its effects. When our earlieft difcoveries were made, and they 

 reached farther North than we commonly fail at prefent, it was 

 performed in barks of feventy tons, with fome trouble, no 

 doubt, but with very little hazard. At this day it is known, 

 that in no part of the World there are greater quantities of ice 

 feen than in Hudfon's Bay, and yet there is no navigation fafer? 



5 See Marten's Account of Spitzbergen, p. 101J. 

 * Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. III. p. 702. 



th*5 



