BOOK vide against the frozen winds, and the want of provisions. LXXVI. But nothing more can be hoped for from fresh attempts by

Geogra

phical con

tradictions.

sea, since Ross, Parry, Franklin, Cook, Billings, and
Sarytschew, have confirmed the observations of Heemskerk
and Wood, Mulgrave, Hudson, Jean de Munck, Fox, and
Baffin, who were every one of them arrested in their pro-
gress by either land or ice. Nevertheless, a contrary opin-
ion has been suddenly revived, by the discovery of the ac-
count of a pretended voyage round the northern extremities
of America, published by Maldonado Ferrer, which this im-
postor alleges that he himself performed in 1588. This
memoir, discovered in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and
the publication of which is due to the zeal of the learned M.
Amoretti, is dedicated to the Royal Court of Lisbon, for the
purpose of inducing that Government to fit out an expedi-
tion, of which, no doubt, he himself hoped to have the com-
mand. It is composed of thirty-five paragraphs, of which
the eight first detail the great commercial advantages of this
new passage, and the necessity of occupying it by a mili-
tary force.
From the ninth to the thirty-third para-
graph, directions are given with regard both to the route,
and his pretended voyage; and the two last contain the
plan of an expedition which he affirms ought to be sent
thither.*

Without entering into a detail of the contradictions which result from an examination of Maldonado's calculations, and from comparing the two translations of the original Spanish published by M. Amoretti, the one in Italian, the other in French; we will merely remark that, in tracing his voyage on a modern chart, the first unknown part of the route passes through some pretended Straits of Labrador, 280 or 290 miles in length, which would occupy, throughout its whole extent, the land situated to the west of Davis's Straits and Baffin's Bay. The second comprehends a navigation of three hundred and fifty miles, in

'Viaggio dal Mare Atlantico al Pacifico per la via del nord-ouest, etc. etc. Milan, 1811.

an open sea, descending from 75° of latitude to 71° in the BOOK
vicinity of Icy Cape, beyond which, neither Cook nor King LXXVI.
could advance from the south. The third part of this voy-
age conducts him across a part of the actual continent of
Asia, by what he calls the Straits of Anian; which, ac-
cording to his bearings, ought to be looked for in Tartary,
sixty miles to the west of Okhotsk. In the fourth, he
lengthens out the coast of America in one uninterrupted
and desert line: but, according to the charts, he must have
traversed the Stannowoi mountains in the country of the
Tunguts. Finally, in the fifth, he describes a great ele-
vated coast, which, from its position, can be nothing else
than that of the Lake Baikal. Were it even possible to
admit that Maldonado was mistaken in his longitude, and
that his Straits of Anian are, in fact, what we are acquaint-
ed with under the name of Bhering or of Cook, the diffi-
culties would still be the same; because, in that case, Mal-
donado must have crossed the Peninsula of Alaska, or, at all
events, must have passed through the midst of the Aleutian
islands, without being able to perceive them! Besides, Mal- Physical
donado's Straits of Anian bear no resemblance whatever to
those of Bhering, being rather copied from those of Magel-
lan. He pretends to have followed this route, which, ac-
cording even to his own account, exceeds seventeen hundred
geographical miles in length, twice in the course of one sum-
mer, without encountering ice, phocæ, white bears, or any
thing, in short, which is peculiar to the northern zone. But
he tells us of a wall, above three feet high, composed of egg-
shells, and speaks of beautiful trees, that retain their fruit
the whole year; he found the Litchis, a Chinese fruit, the
wild vine, and various kinds of game belonging to the tem-
perate climates; and, more particularly, a species of hog
with its navel on its back, and lobsters a foot and a half
in length; nay, he actually affirms that he saw a Russian or
Hanseatic vessel, of 800 tons, on its passage to Archangel!!
These, with many others, are the marvellous stories which
Maldonado relates. It is natural, therefore, to feel some cu-

contradic

tions.

LXXVI.

BOOK riosity respecting such a personage. Unfortunately, however, all that is known of him is reduced to two notes, the one an extract from the "Spanish Library" of N. Antonio, according to which, he was an old military officer, who was well acquainted with navigation and geography, and was the author of a work entitled the Picture of the World, and of the History of the discovery of the Straits of Anian. The other is extracted from the "Indian Library" of Antonio de Leon, from which it appears that Maldonado had drawn the council of the Indies into great expense, by the vain promise of discovering a compass that would not be subject to the inconvenience of the variation, and of a method for finding the longitude at sea.

Origin of these fables.

In the thirtieth paragraph of his plan for the expedition, Maldonado says that he was guided, during his voyage, by a good account written by Joas Martinez a Portuguese pilot, and a native of the Algarves, but of whom no one knows any thing. It appears probable, therefore, that this manufacturer of projects was in possession of some unknown description of the Portuguese voyages through Hudson's Straits, called the Straits of Anian by Cortereal. He no doubt combined these notions with some hints borrowed from the Japanese, respecting the sea of Okhotsk. Hence, this combination of positions, which it is impossible to admit, and this union of physical characters which belong to different climates. The relation of Maldonado, in short, is no longer any thing but a bibliographical curiosity. It was such stories as these which made Baffin say, after having explored with the greatest care, in 1615 and 1616, all the coasts of the sea which bears his name, "The Spaniards, a vain and jealous people, would never have ventured to publish so many false charts and imaginary journals, unless, convinced of the existence of a north-west passage, they had been anxious to deprive of the glory of the dis

Baron de Lindenau, The probability of Maldonado's Voyage examined. In 8vo. Gotha, 1812. (In German.)

+ Purchas' Pilgrims, t. III. p. 343.

covery, that courageous individual who should be the first BOOK to pass it. As to myself, I was unable to renounce this LXXVI. opinion, so generally received, until I was persuaded of the absolute impossibility of finding what I had so ardently longed to discover."

This opinion of the pretended navigations of Maldonado Ferrer, seems to us to be still further confirmed by the late discoveries of Parry, since they do not coincide with those of Maldonado, either in regard to positions or physical details.

Let us then acknowledge with this navigator, and with all who possess any true knowledge, that the extent of America to the north is still unknown, and that no one has sailed round it on that side.

dif- Naviga

tion of the

ex- frozen ice, seas.

When we reflect on the nature of the icy sea, it is ficult to believe that navigators can ever explore its tent. Every where they have encountered fixed which has arrested their progress; or moveable ice, which threatening to enclose them, has put all their courage to flight. Captain Wood, who firmly believed in the possibility of a northern passage, found his further progress stopped at 76° by a continent of ice, which united together Nova-Zembla, Spitzbergen, and Greenland. Captain Souter, on the contrary, in 1780, continued his course as far as 82° 6′, in a smooth and open channel. The fixed ice, however, which formed the sides, beginning to be detached, he dreaded lest his return should be cut off, and, accordingly, abandoned the enterprise.* Although the courageous Baffin, and a few others have been able to make the circuit of the bay that bears his name, this sea has been generally found closed by a mass of fixed ice, of a hundred German leagues in length, and containing mountains four hundred feet high. Perhaps, James' Island, marked in several charts, was a similar mass of ice. Captain Wafer frankly confesses that he mistook fixed ice, five hundred

Bacstrom's Voyage to Spitzbergen. Philosophical Magazine, 1801.

+ Crantz, History of Greenland, Book I. ch. II.

Fixed ice.

BOOK feet in height, for genuine islands.* It often happens that LXXVI. this floating ice is found covered with large stones and trees,

ice.

torn up by the roots, which produces the illusion of a land covered with vegetation. It is quite uncertain whether the Dutch discovered, to the east of Spitzbergen, an actual coast, or only an expanse of ice. In one of their voyages to the north of Nova-Zembla, they found a bank of bluish-coloured ice covered with earth, on which birds built their nests. Two islands of ice have continued stationary for half a century in the bay of Disco. Dutch whalers have visited them, and have given them names.‡

Moveable An equal degree of danger attends moveable ice. The shock of these enormous masses produces a tremendous crash, which warns the seaman how easily his vessel would be crushed to pieces if it were caught between these floating islands. Frequently the wood that drifts upon this sea, and of which we shall afterwards speak more at length, takes fire in consequence of the violent friction to which it is exposed by the movement of the ice, and smoke and flames burst forth in the midst of eternal winter. This floating wood is very frequently found charred at both ends.¶ In winter, the intensity of the cold is continually bursting asunder the mountains of ice, and every moment is heard the explosion of these masses, which yawn into enormous rents. In spring, the movement of the ice more generally consists of the mere overturning of these masses, which lose their equilibrium in consequence of one part being dissolved before another. The fog which envelopes this melting ice is so dense, that from one extremity of a frigate, it is impossible to discern the other.**

Wafer, Voyage, in continuation of those of Dampier, t. IV. p. 304.

+ Voyages of the Dutch to the North, t. I. p. 47.

Olafsen, Voyage to Iceland, t. I. p. 275. (German translation.)

Marten's Voyage to the North, t. II. p. 62. Voyages of the Dutch to the North, t. I. p. 46. Crantz, History of Greenland, ch. II. Forster, Observations on Physical Geography, p. 64. (in German.)

|| Olafsen, Voyage to Iceland, t. I. p. 276, 278.

Ibid. p. 273.

** Account of the Danish officers, sent to Greenland in 1788.