ON 
THE POSITION 
OF 
THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE. 
(SUPPLEMENT.) 
On the return of Captain Ross from his last expedition, the 
anxiety of the British public was strong'ly excited, to ascertain 
the results of it, and particularly of the discoveries, which had 
been made in the various branches of nautical and geographical 
science. On his arrival he became the lion of the day, although 
dressed in one of his own bear skins, and in the different soiree's 
and conversaziones, he showed off as the most prominent cha¬ 
racter of the party, threading the various creeks, straits, and 
bays of a miscellaneous party of astonished prattlers, with the 
same kind of heavy alacrity, that we may conceive distinguished 
his attempts to discover a North West Passage. Royalty com¬ 
manded him to appear at their dinner-table, to enliven the dul- 
ness and stupidity of regal etiquette, by a recital of the wonder¬ 
ful scenes through which he had passed, and to tickle the ears of 
royalty with the truly gratifying intelligence, that he had fixed 
a barber’s pole, with a piece of bunting attached to it, on a lump 
of granite, in a desolate part of the world, in honour of the most 
illustrious monarch, who was then showering upon him the most 
gracious smiles of his approbation. From the dining-room of 
royalty he lionised at Vauxhall Gardens; a gaping multitude 
were shown the fertile continent of Boothia and the position of 
the magnetic pole, at his panorama in Leicester Square, although 
the said continent and the said magnetic pole happened to be at 
the distance of a few hundred miles from each other ; he has been 
shown off in the various print-shops, under almost all the dif¬ 
ferent forms which the human countenance can assume ; he has 
shown himself off to the kings of Denmark, Sweden, and Russia ; 
and, lastly, he has been shown off in the pages of thiswork, and 
31. a 
