APPENDIX. 
No. I. 
During the publication of this little work, I was 
favoured, through the medium of a friend, with 
some very important remarks made by a Gentle¬ 
man of great nautical skill and experience, in the 
year 1814, on board his Majesty’s ship Sybyll, 
while in the North Seas, for the protection of the 
Greenland fishery. 
The first point to which he alludes, is the varia¬ 
tion of the compass; and respecting it he observes, 
u Being anxious that every thing possible should 
be done for the improvement of navigation, I de¬ 
termined, while in those high latitudes, to take 
every opportunity of observing to what extent the 
variation of the compass might be affected by the 
ship’s course. A paper containing Captain Flin¬ 
ders’ observations on the same subject, had previ¬ 
ously been sent to me by the Lord’s of the Admi¬ 
ralty ; and as these observations had chiefly been 
