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The height of the eye about 12 feet. Lat. 62° 12' N. 
And by calculating thefe three fets feparately, and 
taking a mean of the three refults, the variation will 
come oyt =r 44 0 f . 
It may perhaps be worthy of remark, that the 
ifland of God’s Mercies, or, as fome call it, the 
Upper Savage Ifland, lies in the mouth of an inlet, 
running northward ; out of which come the greater 
part of thofe iflands of ice, which are fo much 
taken notice of in thefe parts. I have been told by 
gentlemen in the Hudion’s Bay fervice, that fome of 
their fhips have formerly been driven by the ice into 
this inlet, where they found a fine open fea, without 
any bounds that they could fee to the northward. 
This inlet is called the North-Bay. 
I beg leave likewife to mention what I apprehend 
to be a miftake in Crantz’s hiftory of Greenland, 
where he fays that thofe pieces of ice which are of 
a vitriol colour are fait, and confift of fait water 
frozen to ice ; but I can, from my own experience, 
aflert, that when the fait water, which they catch 
by the fea wafliing over them, is wiped clean off, 
they are entirely frefh. I will not take upon me 
to fay that they are not made from fait water ; 
but if they are, it mull have depofited all its falts 
before it was frozen to ice. 
5 July 27.. This evening I told 58 iflands of 
ice, all going directly acrofs the Straits from the 
mouth of the above-mentioned inlet, at the rate of 
feveral miles per hour. 
From this one circumftance, we have an irre- 
fragable argument to prove the impoflibility of Capt. 
Middleton’s hypothefis, relating to the very flow pro- 
6 grelfive 
