212 
NORT II 
cerning the polar Teas, it appears that he had been in the 
latitude of 82°. 
3. One Mr. Watt informed our author, that when he 
was 17 years of age, at that time making his firit voyage 
with Capt. M'Callam, a bold and fkilful navigator, who 
commanded a Scotch whale-filhing Ihip, as during the 
time that the whales are fuppofed to copulate no (idling 
can be carried on, the captain refolved to employ that in¬ 
terval in attempting to reach the north pole. He ac¬ 
cordingly proceeded without the lead: obftruflion to 83!, 
when the fea was not only open to the northward, but 
they had feen noice for the lad three degrees; but, while 
he Hill advanced, the mate complained that the compafs 
was not fteady, and the captain was obliged with reluc¬ 
tance to give over his attempt. 
4. Dr. Campbell, the continuator of Harris’s Voyages, 
informed Mr. Barrington, that Dr. Dallie, a native of 
Holland, being in his youth on-board a Dutch fhip of 
war which at that time was ufiially fent to fuperintend 
the Greenland fifliery, the captain determined, like the 
Scotchman above mentioned, to make an attempt to reach 
the pole during the interval between the firftand fecond 
filheries. He penetrated, according to the bell of Dr. 
Campbell’s recolleflion, as far as 88°; when the weather 
was warm, the fea free from ice, and rolling like the Bay 
of Bifcay. Dallie now prefted the captain to proceed : but 
he anfwered, that he had already gone too far, and fhould 
be blamed in Holland for neglecting his ltation ; upon 
which account he would fuffer no journal to be kept, but 
returned as foon as poffible to Spitzbergen. 
5. In the year 1662-3, Mr. Oldenburg, then fecretary of 
the Royal Society, was ordered to regifter a paper, enti¬ 
tled “ Several Inquiries concerning Greenland, anfwered 
by Mr. Gray, who had vifited thefe parts.” The 19th of 
thefe queries is the following : How near hath any one 
been known to approach the pole ? Anfwer, “ I once 
met upon the coad of Greenland a Hollander that fwore 
he had been half a degree from the pole, fhowsng me 
his journal, which was alfo attelled by his mate; where 
they had feen no ice or land, but all water.” 
6. In Capt. Wood’s account of a voyage in quell of a 
liorth-ead pafiage, we have the following account of a 
Dutch (hip which reached the latitude of 89°. “ Captain 
Goulden, who had made above thirty voyages to Green¬ 
land, did relate to his majefty, that, being at Greenland 
fome twenty years before, he was in company with two 
Hollanders to the eaftward of Edge’s ifland ; and that, the 
whales not appearing on the (hore, the Hollanders were 
determined to go farther northward ; and in a fortnight’s 
time returned, and gave it out that they had failed into 
the latitude 89°, and that they did not meet with any ice, 
but a free and open fea, and that there ran a very hollow 
grown fea, like that of the Bay of Bifcay. Mr. Goulden 
being not fatisfied with the bare relation, they produced 
him four journals out of the two (hips, which tedified the 
(ame, and that they all agreed within four minutes.” 
7. In the Philofophical Transactions for 1675 we have 
the following pallage : “ For it is well known to all that 
fail northward, that mod of the northern coads are froz¬ 
en up for many leagues, though in the open fea it is not 
fo, vo nor under the pole itjelf, unlefs by accident.” In 
which pallage, the having reached the pole is alluded to 
as a known fail, and as fuch dated to the Royal Society. 
8. Mr. Miller, in his Gardener’s Diftionary, mentions 
the voyage of one Capt. Johnfon, who reached 88 degrees 
of latitude. Mr. Barrington was at pains to find a full 
account of this voyage; but met only with the following 
pafiagein Buffon’s Natural Hiltory, which he takes to be 
a confirmation of it: “I have been aflured by perfons of 
credit, that an Englidi captain, whole name was Monfon, 
indead of feeking a pafiage to China between the northern 
countries, had direiled his courle to the pole, and had 
approached it .within two degrees, where there was an 
open lea, without any ice.” Here he thinks that M. Buf- 
ion liasmidaken Johnfon for Monfon. 
POLE. 
9. A map of the northern hemifphere, publifhed l.t 
Berlin (under the direction of the Academy of Sciences 
and Belles Lettres), places a (hip at the pole, as having 
arrived there according to the Dutch accounts. 
10. Moxon, hydrographer to Charles II. gives an ac¬ 
count of a Dutch dtip having been two degrees beyond the 
pole, which Was much relied on by Wood. This lias been 
already noticed at p. 184. 
Beiides thefe, there are a great number of other teftf- 
monies of (hips which have reached the lat. of 81, 82, 83, 
84, &c. from all which our author concludes, that, if the 
voyage is attempted at a proper time of the year, there 
would not be any great difficulty in reaching the pole. 
Thole vail pieces of ice which commonly obdrudl the 
navigators, he thinks proceed from the mouths of the 
great Aliatic rivers which run northward into the frozen 
ocepn, and are driven eadward and wedward by the cur¬ 
rents. But, though we diould fuppofe them to come di- 
reftly from the pole, dill our author thinks that this af¬ 
fords an undeniable proof that the pole itfelf is free from 
ice; becaufe, when the pieces leave it, and come to the 
fouthward, it is impoflible that they can at the fame time 
accumulate at the pole. 
Again, the fydem of nature is fo formed, that all parts 
of the earth are expofed for the fame length of time, or 
nearly fo, throughout the year, to the rays of the fun. But, 
by reafon of the fpheroidal figure of the terraqueous 
globe, the poles and polar regions enjoy the fun fome- 
what longer than others; and hence the Dutch who win¬ 
tered in Nova Zembla in 1672 faw the fun a fortnight 
fooner than they ought to have done by adronomical cal¬ 
culations. See p. 169, 71. By reafon of this flatnefs 
about the poles, too, the fun not only (hines for a greater 
fpace of time on thefe inhofpitable regions, but with lefs 
obliquity in lhe fummer-time, and hence the edeft of his 
rays mud be the greater. Now Mr Barrington conliders 
it as an abfurd fuppofition, that this glorious luminary 
(hould fhine for fix months on a cake of barren ice where 
there is neither animal nor vegetable. He fays that the 
polar feas are alligned by nature as the habitation of the 
whales, the larged animals in the creation ; but, if the 
greated part of the polar feas are for ever covered with an 
impenetrable cake of ice, thefe huge animals will be con¬ 
fined within very narrow bounds; for they cannot fubfilt 
without frequently coming to the top of the water to 
breathe. 
Ladly, the extreme cold of the winter-air on the conti¬ 
nents of Afiaand America has afforded room forfufpicion, 
that at the pole itfelf, and for feveral degrees to the fouth¬ 
ward of it, the fea mud be frozen to a vad depth in one 
folid cake of ice; but this Mr. Barrington refutes from 
feveral confiderations. He fays, that on fuch a fuppo¬ 
fition, by the continual intenlity of the cold, and the 
accumulation of (how and frozen vapour, this cake of 
ice mud have been increafing in thicknefs fince the cre¬ 
ation, or at lead fince the deluge; fo that nowit mud 
be equal in height to the highelt mountains in the world, 
and be viiible at a great dillance. But the fafl is, that 
the ice, which fometimes packs (as it is called) to the 
northward of Spitzbergen, does not commonly exceed 
two yards in height above the furface of the water; for 
thofe immenfe piecfes called ice-mountains are always 
formed on land. 
The works confulted in compiling this article, befides 
Mr. Barrow’s Chronological Hidory, are—Hakluyt’s Col¬ 
lection of Voyages. Purchas’s Pilgrims. Capt. Burney’s 
Memoir on the Geography of the North-eadern Part of 
Alia, 1817. Defcriptions of Greenland, by Egede and his 
grandfon. Poffibility of approaching the North Pole, 
&c. by the Hon. Daines Barrington, and Col. Beaufoy, 
1776 and 1818. Laing’s Voyage to Spitzbergen, 1818. 
Scorelby on the Greenland or Polar Ice, 1818. Edin¬ 
burgh Rev. for June 1818. Monthly Review for Jan. 
1819. Coxe’s Account of Ruffian Difcoveries. Ency. 
Brit. art. Pole. New Monthly Mag. vol. x. Gent. 
Mag. 
