854 Captain Sooresby's Journal of' a Voyage to the 
down to Lat. 70°. No whales appearing, they again sailed to 
Lat. 71 °* On the 16th, 17th, and 18th July, numerous in- 
teresting displays of atmospheric refraction were observed, for 
the description of which, and the ingenious speculations regard- 
ing their formation, we must refer to the Journal itself. 
Their endeavours to find whales, at a distance from the coast, 
having failed, Captain Scoresby considered himself fully justi- 
fied in approaching nearer to the shore ; and, on the 19th July, 
they came close to the land at the mouth of a bay, in Lat. 
71 0 2'. On the 20th, they got within six or seven miles of the 
coast, which afforded an opportunity for various surveying ope- 
rations. At noon, the latitude observed was 70° 44/ 57" N., 
Long. 21° 9' W. The land at this time surveyed, including 
fifteen miles of coast to the southward, and twenty-five to the 
northward, was rugged, black, and barren, and the general 
height of this coast about 8000 feet. On the 24th July, they 
again approached the land, when the sky became clear. 
Being anxious to land upon a coast, on which no navigator (a 
whale-fisher or two perhaps excepted) had ever set foot, I thought 
this a favourable opportunity for gratif} T ing my curiosity. This cu- 
riosity was heightened almost to the utmost pitch, by the historical 
recollections of the Icelandic colonies, that had, at a remote period, 
been planted a few degrees to the southward, upon the same line 
of coast,— -and particularly by the hope which J could not avoid in- 
dulging, that I might be able to discover some traces of those hardy 
people, the fate of whom, for near four centuries, has been a pro- 
blem of such intense and almost universal interest. An additional 
interest attached to the investigation of this country (if the interest 
excited by the above considerations were capable of augmentation), 
was the circumstance of the singular and total failure of the many 
attempts of the Danes to reach this coast, for the recovery of the an- 
cient colonies, — together with the peculiar enjoyment that necessa- 
rily arose out of the conviction, that the shore on which I designed 
to land was entirely unknown to Europeans, and totally unex- 
plored.” P. 183, 184. 
They stood in, and landed on a rocky point, named Cape 
Lister, lying in Lat. 70° 80' N., and Long. 21° 30' W. The 
rugged rocks of this point were primitive, and the vegetation was 
confined to a few lichens, with occasional tufts of Andromeda 
tetragona , Saxifraga oppositifolia, Papaver nudicaule , and Ra- 
nunculus nivalis. Here the remains of Esquimaux huts were 
discovered, and fire-places with ashes, thus intimating, that the 
inhabitants may have been in this quarter within a few weeks of 
