ALBERT LAND. 
205 
the official report of their commander ; and there is not 
a man among them who would have given for a sin- 
gle moment the countenance of his silence to a fabri- 
cated claim. I can not allow myself to discuss this 
branch of the question any further. 
A glance at the map is the fitting reply to the inti- 
mation of the British hydrographer, that the Grinnell 
Land of the American squadron was in fact Baillie 
Hamilton Island. Baillie Hamilton Island, as it is 
marked ori all the maps, hears considerably to the west 
of northwest from the position of our vessel on the 22d 
of September. What'Ca.ptain De Haven saw, and de- 
scribed and plotted, was a tract extending from the 
northwest to the north-northeast of the same position. 
It is scarcely a warranted assumption that the Amer- 
ican explorers mistook the bearings of the land some 
sixty or seventy degrees.^ 
If it be conceded, then, that the American squadron 
did in fact discover the land in question in September, 
1850, we are ready for the next inquiry, Had any one 
discovered it before them ? 
No doubt it was visited by Mr. Stewart, one of Cap- 
tain Penny's officers, on the 24th of May, 1851 ; and 
it is certain that, after Captain Penny's return, it was 
announced as his discovery, and took the name of Al- 
bert Land on the maps of Arrowsmith and of the Admi- 
* Our expedition was well supplied with chronometers. Besides several of 
the best English manufacture, carefully selected and tested at the National Ob- 
servatory, we had three from Bliss and Creighton, of New York. One of these, 
under the charge of Mr. Murdaugh, our master, varied from its given rate, be- 
tween the 18th of May, 1850, and the 3d of October, 1851, 10 min. 45' ; show- 
ing a daily error of -^^^ of a second of time. Such an error, computed up to 
f the 22d of September, 1850, would be equal, in latitude 75° 24' 11", to an error 
of position of less than a mile and a half. The weather, however, was rarely 
favorable for astronomical observations. The most reliable one which I find 
noted in my copy of the Log gives for our longitude, in our extreme drift to the 
north, 93° 31' 10" W. 
