[ 9° J 



Hp H U S do the Dutch feamen, employed in the Greenland 

 fimery, agree with our own countrymen, in never having 

 fo much as heard of a perpetual barrier of fixed ice, to the 

 Northward of Spitzbergen, in 80 deg. and a halfu which in- 

 deed is one of their moft common latitudes for catching whales, 

 whilft all of them fuppofe the fea to be generally open in thofe 

 parts, and many of them proceed feveral degrees beyond it. 



I mail only add, that, in my former pamphlet ; , I have 

 mentioned a fact or two, I had reafon to expect from the 

 Rev. Mr. Tooke, Chaplain to the factory at Peterfburgh, which 

 he conceived would ftrongly prove that the fea is open to the 

 Pole, and which I have fince received in a letter from him dated 

 the 26th of May laft. 



Mr. Tooke hath been affured by feveral perfons, who have 

 palled the winter at Kola in Lapland, that in the fevereft wea- 

 ther, whenever a Northerly wind blows, 'the cold diminifhes 

 inftantly, and that, if it continues, it always brings on a thaw 

 as long as it lafts. 



He hath alfo been informed by the fame authority, that the 

 feamen who go out from Kola upon the whale and morfe 

 filheries early in March (for the fea never freezes there) throw 

 off their winter garments as foon as they are from 50 to 100 

 w^rfts k from land, and continue without them all the time 

 they are upon the fifhery, during which they experience no in- 

 convenience from the cold, but that on their return (at the end 

 of May) as they approach land, the cold increafes to fuch a 

 feverity, that they fuffer greatly from it. 



h One of them indeed fays, that the ice frequently packs in that lati- 

 tude, which he fuppofes to arife from the meeting of two currents. 

 { Page 33, note [j]. 

 k Three werfts make two miles. 



This 



