A VOYAGE TO 
Southward of Shelatfkoi Nofs, only Sixty miles of the Afia- 
lic coaft remain unascertained. 
Had Captain Cook lived to this period of our voyage, and 
experienced, in a Second attempt, the impracticability of a 
North Eaft or North Weft paffage from the Pacific to the 
Atlantic Ocean, he would doubtlefs have laid before the 
Public, in one connected view, an account of the obftacles 
which defeated this, the primary objeCt of our expedition, 
together with his observations on a fubjeCt of Such magni¬ 
tude, and which had engaged the attention, and divided the 
opinions of philofophers and navigators, for upward of two 
hundred years. I am very fenfible how unequal I am to the 
talk of Supplying this deficiency ; but, that the expectations 
of the reader may not be wholly difappointed, I muft beg 
his candid acceptance of the following observations, as well 
as of thofe I have already ventured to offer him, relative to 
the extent of the North Eaft coaft of Afia. 
The evidence that has been fo fully and judicioufly ftated 
in the introduction, amounts to the higheft degree of pro¬ 
bability, that a North Weft paffage, from the Atlantic into 
the Pacific Ocean, cannot exift to the Southward of 65° of 
latitude. If then there exifts a paffage, it muft be either 
through Baffin’s Bay, or round by the North of Greenland, 
in the Weftern hemifphere; or elfe through the Frozen 
Ocean, to the Northward of Siberia, in the Eaftern; and on 
whichever fide it lies, the navigator muft neceffarily pafs 
through Beering’s Strait. The impracticability of pene¬ 
trating into the Atlantic on either fide, through this ftrait, 
is therefore all that remains to be Submitted to the confide- 
ration of the Public. 
As far as our experience went, it appears, that the fea to 
the North of Beering’s ftrait, is clearer of ice in Auguft than 
I in 
a 
