May 24, 1858.] 
OBITUARY.— SCOEESBY. 
255 
In 1822 he succeeded in reaching the east coast of Greenland, 
which, by his indefatigable labours, was laid down on charts from 
the 70th to the 75th degree of latitude, and, taking in the bays and 
fiords, a coast line of 800 miles was defined correctly, and errors of 
previous charts, amounting to no less than 7° of longitude, cor- 
rected. An account of this remarkable voyage (dedicated by per- 
mission to King William the Fourth) was published the following 
year ; and in a copious appendix, the pages devoted to mineralogy, 
botany, zoology, and meteorology, evince to what great profit the 
author had studied at Edinburgh. 
In the course of a visit to the island of Jan Mayen, Scoresby de- 
tected one of the most remarkable proofs of the effect of the equatorial 
current. He found on the shores of that singular island (recently 
visited by Lord Dufferin) pieces of drift wood bored by a ptenus or 
pholas, neither of which animals ever pierce wood in Arctic countries, 
and hence he concluded that the worm-eaten drifted fragment had 
been borne by currents from a transpolar region. The notion of a 
constantly open polar sea Dr. Scoresby always believed to be 
chimerical. 
He was the first also to attempt observations on the electricity of 
the atmosphere in high northern latitudes, and his. experiments 
made with an insulated conductor eight feet above the head of 
the main-top-gallant mast, connected by a wire with a copper ball, 
attached by a silken cord to the deck, are still regarded with interest 
for their novelty and ingenuity. 
This collection of scientific data was never permitted to interfere 
with the main objects of the voyage, in the pursuit of which he 
was most successful, and, notwithstanding a resolute determination, 
that the sanctity of the Sabbath should never be violated by the 
pursuit of the whale, his ship usually returned the fullest of the 
season. Some idea of his constant zeal may be found in the 
expression which he uses, that, when he went into the ice, he con- 
sidered it was his own watch on deck until extricated at the close 
of the season. 
Abandoning nautical pursuits in the year 1823, Mr. Scoresby gave 
a fresh and remarkable proof of his unbounded energy and great 
ability by mastering the difficulties attendant upon the adoption of 
the career of a divine. Setting to work with the assiduity of youth, 
he graduated at Queen’s College, Cambridge, as b.d., in 1834, and 
was inducted to that Church of England of which he became a dis- 
tinguished ornament. In short, he devoted many years of his life 
