202 
WILLIAM S'CORESBV, THE YOUNGER. 
Greenland. In the life which he wrote of his father half-a-century 
afterwards, he gives a picturesque account of an attack upon the ship 
by an enemy, which attack suddenly came to an end on the opening 
of the ports of the " Dundee," and the revelation of her cannon. It 
further appears that the father, even after starting for Greenland with 
William, had entertained the idea of leaving the boy in Shetland 
until his return, but again the son out-manoeuvred the father, and 
succeeded in remaining on board the vessel. 
In 1806, being then 16 years of age, he was appointed to be 
chief officer of his ship, the " Resolution," and sailed in that capacity 
under his father's orders. The ship forced her way through " an icy 
barrier of extraordinary tenaciousness and compactness," and speedily 
left the rest of the whaling fleet far behind. Here she reached a 
region in the 80th parallel, described by Captain Scoresby as a sea of 
open water, never before or since navigated. Tliey continued their 
course until, with not even a whaling vessel within three hundred 
miles of them, the sea began to freeze, and they retraced their course 
after having reached the highest northern latitude, (81° 12^24^'), ever 
reached by ordinary sailing. The point attained by Admiral Parry 
in 1827, (82° 45^), w\as reached by travelling across the ice. 
In the intervals of his voyages, the younger Scoresby was indus- 
triously carrying on studies mainly of a scientific character, his genius 
and predilections being eminently in that direction. In this way he 
utilised the time in winter, during which his sea-work w^as impossible, 
and, notably at Edinburgh during two winters, he made remarkable 
progress. His studies included natural history, mathematics, and 
logic in particular. Anatomy and gymnastics completed his ordinary 
routine. The time that could be spared beyond what these required 
was spent in extending his notes on natural histor}^, which he had 
habitually made from the first. 
It was during the voyage of 1806 that his first step in practical 
science appears to have been taken. AVhile delayed in Balta Sound, 
Mr. Scoresby made a survey of the harbour, of which there was no 
chart, and drew out directions for the navigation. In 1807, when the 
gigantic contest between France and Prussia was in progress, Mr. 
Scoresby was at Copenhagen. This beautiful city was bombarded on 
