C 373 ] 
equal only in afliduity. But I had advantages of 
which they were deftitute ; with a fmall veffel, and 
having an Indian with me, who knew of every rock 
and fhoal upon the coaft, I was enabled to be ac- 
curate in my obfervations ; and thefe are the reafons* 
why I deem my own fketch preferable to all others. 
Of the coast. 
As this country is one of the moft barren in the. 
known world, fo its fea-coaft is the moft remarkable.. 
Bordered by innumerable iflands, and many of them 
being a confiderable diftance from the main land, a 
fhip of burthen would fail a great way along the 
coaft, without being able to form any notion of its. 
true fituation.. 
Hence it is that all charts of it have been fo ex- 
tremely erroneous 5 and hence arofe thofe opinions* 
that fome of the inlets extended a vaft diftance into 
the country, if not quite into the fea of Hudson's, 
bay. 
davis’s inlet, which has been fo much talked 
of, is not twenty leagues from the entrance of it to 
its extremity. 
The navigation here is extremely hazardous. To- 
wards the land, the fea is covered with large bodies,, 
and broken pieces, of ice and the farther you go 
northward, the greater is the quantity you meet with. 
Some of thofe mafies, which the feamen calf 
iflands of ice, are of a prodigious magnitude, and they 
are generally fuppofed to fwim two thirds under 
water. You will frequently fee them more than a 
hundred feet above the furface, and to fhips in a. 
ftorm,, 
