LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
205 
In his first voyage, his greatest solicitude, appeared to be to 
obtain possession of a number of pieces of iron ore; no matter 
how poor in the precious metal, or diminutive in size ; when 
had he consulted his common sense, it would have told him, 
that three or four specimens would have been all-sufficient to 
convince every member of the geological society that he knew, 
difference between lead and iron, and that he had thereby 
opened a new field for the exertions of the Emigration Com¬ 
mittee by despatching a cargo of the surplus population of 
England, to work the iron mines of Lancaster Sound. A single 
specimen would have been sufficient to stifle the invidious sneers 
of certain individuals, who 
“Hating the merit, which they cannot reach” 
pretended in the plenitude of their sagacity, to draw a parallel 
between the gold ore which Capt. Frobisher brought home from 
nearly the same country, to dazzle and bewilder the eyes of 
queen Elizabeth, and her suppliant courtiers, and the iron ore 
which was brought home by Capt. Ross, for the meritorious 
purpose of proving to the Lords of the Admiralty, that he had 
discovered something, although, it was not exactly the object 
for which they had sent him out, as well as to convince the 
good people of England, that he was not deficient in gratitude; 
as in return for the gold which they had so generously bestowed 
upon him, he had brought them some iron, and having formally 
taken possession of the country in which it abounded, in the 
name of the king of England, he had conferred no little boon 
upon his country, in attaching so valuable an appendage to the 
British crown. 
j In his last voyage, the gallant captain mounted a different 
kind of hobby horse, but which in its nature and properties was 
rather more extraordinary than that which he had ridden so 
unmercifully in his first voyage. His first hobby horse was, al¬ 
though remotely, not wholly divested of utility, for although he 
might not have succeeded by his eloquential powers in persuad¬ 
ing some bold speculator to purchase a steam engine, for the 
purpose of working the iron mines, which he had discovered, 
