XIII.] 
BUACHFS POLAR MAP, 
217 
nortli to 84° N.L. Thence he shaped his course between 
Spitzbergen and Greenland, and passing west of Scotland and 
Ireland came again to Oporto in Portugal.” M. de la Madelene’s 
narrative is to be found reproduced in M. Buache’s excellent 
geographical paper “ Sur les differentes idees qii’on a eues de la 
traversee de la Mere Glaciale arctique et sur les communications 
ou jonctions qu’on a supposees entre diverses rivieres ” {Histoire 
de TAcademie, Ann4e 1754, Paris, 1759, Memoires, p. 12). The 
paper is accompanied by a Polar map constructed by Buache 
himself, which, though the voyage which led to its construc¬ 
tion was clearly fictitious, and though it also contains many 
other errors-—for instance, the statement that the Dutch 
penetrated in 1670 to the north part of Taimur Land—is yet 
very valuable and interesting as a specimen of what a learned 
and critical geographer knew in 1754 about the Polar regions. 
That Melguer s voyage is fictitious is shown partly by the ease 
with which he is said to havei gone from the one sea to the 
other, partly by the fact that the only detail which is to be 
found in his narrative, viz. the statement that the coast of 
Tartary extends to 84° N.L., is incorrect. 
All these and various other similar accounts of north-east, 
north-west, or Polar passages achieved by vessels in former times 
have this in common, that navigation from the one ocean to the 
other across the Polar Sea is said to have gone on as easily as 
drawing a line on the map, that meeting with ice and northern 
animals of the chase is never spoken of, and finally that every 
particular which is noted is in conflict with the known geo¬ 
graphical, climatal, and natural conditions of the Arctic seas. All 
these narratives therefore can be proved to be fictitious, and to 
have been invented by persons who never made any voyages in 
the true Polar Seas. 
The Vega is thus the first vessel that has penetrated by the 
north from one of the great world-oceans to the other. 
