Every such opening,
which exhibited the least appearance, or the smallest symptoms of
stretching far, especially if it stretched in the proper direction, ought
to have been practically and closely examined, not merely viewed at a
distance in a foggy atmosphere. As for the impediments, they were what were
to be expected, what the ships were sent out to meet and overcome; and till
persevering and even highly hazardous efforts had proved that they could
not be overcome, they ought not to have been suffered to weigh the least
with the captain or his men, and especially not with the former.
But to proceed: about midnight on the 19th of August, the sound described
by Baffin to be the largest of all the sounds he discovered, and called by
him Sir Thomas Smith's Sound, was distinctly seen; and the two capes which
formed its entrance were called by Captain Ross after the two ships
Isabella and Alexander. "I considered," he informs us, "the bottom of this
sound to be about eighteen leagues distant, but its entrance was completely
blocked up by ice." Here again, a sound which seemed to promise fair to
lead them into the great Polar Sea was left undiscovered, and in fact
unapproached; for at the distance of eighteen leagues, in that deceptive
climate, nothing could be really known of its real state or practicability.
Had Captain Ross made the attempt; had he spent but a couple of days, and
actually encountered serious obstacles, even though he had not experienced
that those obstacles were insurmountable, he would have had some excuse;
but it is impossible not to censure him for approaching no nearer than
eighteen leagues to a sound such as this, and pronouncing at this distance
that the ice blocked it up completely.
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