350 Captain Scoresby ’s Journal of' a Voyage to the 
on account of the barrier of ice. The weather, however, was 
clear ; and the coast, for an extent of ninety miles, was con- 
stantly visible ; and the various headlands, owing to their great 
elevation, were strongly shewn ; so that a tolerable survey was 
made of the more prominent parts of the coast. In carrying on 
this work, Captain Scoresby had already five or six stations de- 
termined astronomically, and had employed upwards of fifty 
angles or bearings. The general trending of this coast, extend- 
ing from Gale Hamkes’ Bay, in Lat. 75°, to Bontekoe Island 
and Hold-with-Hope, in 73° 30', is SSW., true. It is almost 
wholly mountainous and barren, and its ordinary height 3000 
feet. Of this land, only a few points had been previously 
named ; and, therefore, Captain Scoresby properly considered 
himself entitled to give names to the others ; and hence we have 
Kater’s Bay, Wollaston Foreland, Scott’s Inlet (in honour of 
Sir Walter Scott), Home’s Foreland, &c. In the midst of his 
operations for the survey of this coast, it fortunately happened 
that the moon, at a convenient distance from the sun, for deter- 
mining the longitude, became visible, and this valuable oppor- 
tunity was not lost. From six sets of distances and latitudes, 
he obtained the mean longitude of 17° 54' 30" W., for the place 
of the ship on the 14th June. These observations for the lon- 
gitude, enabled Captain Scoresby to ascertain the exact effect 
in a particular case, of the extraordinary refractive property of 
the atmosphere in the Arctic Seas, which, without such proofs, 
would scarcely have been credible. 
<c The coast that has just been described, is in general so bold 
as to be distinctly visible, in the ordinary state of the atmosphere, 
at the distance of sixty miles ; but on my last voyage into these re- 
gions, one part of this coast was seen, when at more than double 
this distance. The particulars were these Towards the end ot 
July 1821, being among the ice in Lat. 74° 10', and Longitude, by 
lunar observation and chronometer (which agreed to twenty-two mi- 
nutes of longitude, or within six geographical miles), 12° SO' 15" W., 
land was seen from the mast-head to the westward, occasionally, 
for three successive days. It was so distinct and bold, that Cap- 
tain Manby, who accompanied me on that voyage, and whose obser- 
vations are already before the public, was enabled, at one time, to 
take a sketch of it from the deck, whilst I took a similar sketch 
from the mast-head, which is preserved in my journal of that 
year. The land at that time nearest to us was Wollaston’s Fore- 
land, which, by late surveys, proves to lie in Latitude 74° 25' (the 
middle part of it), and Longitude 19* 50' : the distance, therefore, 
must have been at least 120 miles. But Holme’s Foreland, in 21 
