150 
Account of the Expedition to BaftiHs Bay. 
The physical properties of Tabasheer are not less singular 
than its optical qualities, and indicate a structure of a very re- 
xaarkable kind. 
A detailed account of my experiments on this subject, has 
been transmitted to the Royal Society of London, and will pro- 
bably appear in the Second Part of the Philosophical Transac- 
tions for 1819. 
Edinburgh, May 1. 1819. 
Art. XXIX. — Account of the Expedition to Baffiti's Bay^ un- 
der Captain Ross and Lieutenant Parry. Drawn up from 
Captain Ross’s account of the Voyage, and other sources of 
information. 
In the year 1815, and the two succeeding years, numerous 
masses of ice were seen floating in the Atlantic ; and in 1817, it 
was reported by vessels from the arctic regions, that a very con- 
siderable extent of ice had disappeared between Greenland and 
Spitzbergen. These unusual appearances directed the attention 
of the learned to the almost forgotten subject of a passage across 
the Pole. An ingenious and intelligent writer published seve- 
ral dissertations in the Quarterly Review, for the purpose of de- 
monstrating the practicability of a passage across the polar 
seas. The breaking up of the ice on the east coast of Green- 
land held out to him the prospect of arriving directly at the 
Pole through an open sea ; while the want of precision in Baf- 
fin’s narration of his voyage, combined with physical and hydro- 
graphical considerations, induced him to expunge the Bay of 
Baffin from our maps ; and to predict the existence of a passage 
to Behring’s Straits by the northern extremity of the American 
continent. 
Captain Scoresby, who had distinguished himself in no fewer 
than sixteen voyages to the Arctic Regions, had maintained, 
boldt, if any of it is still in existence. It will be interesting to know if the 30 per 
cent, of potash and lime produces any perceptible effect upon the refractive powder 
and other properties of the Tabasheer. I have sent a quantity of the Nagpore Ta- 
basheer to M. Berzelius, with the hope that he may have leisure to submit it to 
an accurate examination. As this distinguished chemist is now in Paris, he would 
do a service to science by comparing directly the Asiatic and American Tabashcers. 
