FIRST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
71 
you can follow, to lead you to the discovery of that of which you 
are in search. 
The strength and direction of the current should be tried, 
once in twenty-four hours, or oftener if any material change 
is observed to take place ; and it will be most advisable to take 
Us temperature at the surface frequently as you proceed, to com¬ 
pare it with the temperarture of the surface where there is no 
current. 
If the reports of several intelligent masters of whaling vessels 
may be relied on, that part of the sea to the northward of Davis’ 
Strait, which is marked on charts as Baffin’s Bay, (that is to say 
from the 72° of northern latitude, to the 77°, where Baffin is sup¬ 
posed to have seen the land,) is generally free from field ice, 
which from its extent of surface, offers the greatest impediment 
to navigation. Should you find this actually to be the case, it 
may be advisable to stand well to the northward, before you edge 
away to the westward, in order to get a good offing in rounding 
the north east point of the continent of America, whose latitude 
has not been ascertained, but which if a conjecture may be haz¬ 
arded, from what is known from the northern coast of that con¬ 
tinent, may perhaps be found about the 72° of latitude. 
In the event of your being able to succeed in rounding this 
point,and finding the sea open,you are carefully to avoid coming 
near the coast, where you would be most likely to be impeded 
by fixed or floating ice, but keeping well to the northward, and 
in deep water, make the best of your way to Behring’s Strait, 
through which you are to endeavour to pass into the Paci¬ 
fic Ocean, and in the event of your succeeding to pass this 
Strait, you are then to make the best of your way to Kamtschatka, 
if you think you can do so without risk of being shut up by the 
ice on that coast, for the purpose of delivering to the Russian 
government, duplicates of all the journals and other documents, 
which the passage may have supplied, with a request that they 
may be forwarded over-land to Petersburg, to be conveyed from 
thence to London, and from there you will proceed to the Sand¬ 
wich Islands or New Albion, or such other place in the Pacific 
Ocean as you may think proper, to refit and refresh your crews 
