Note 163 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This Table, however, we cannot but regard as little better than a mere list of the various stations reached by the Dutch on their return voyage; the distances, and even the bearings, therein recorded, being quite untrustworthy, as may indeed be perceived on the most cursory inspection. Every allowance has, of course, to be made for any inaccuracies that may exist in that Table, in consideration of the circumstances under which the return voyage was made; but, even were we to assume the distances sailed by them in their two small open boats to have been correctly noted down, still there is a sufficient reason for contending that those distances, in themselves, are no sure guide, but, on the contrary, only lead to very erroneous conclusions. For, on a comparison of them with the differences of latitude recorded by De Veer,—which, as being the results of astronomical observations made by so experienced a navigator as Barents was, are subject only to the imperfections of the instruments employed by him,—it will be seen that the former, especially between Langenes and Cape Nassau, are throughout much too small. No reason is given by De Veer for this discrepancy; and, indeed, it would be difficult to account for it, were it not for the fact established by the observations of Admiral Lütke, that a very powerful current from south to north sets along the western coast of Novaya Zemlya as far as Cape Nassau. The velocity of this current was ascertained by that intelligent seaman to be as much as sixty miles per diem,163 and owing to it he frequently found himself in a latitude from forty-five to fifty-five miles further north than was shown by his dead reckoning.164 A remarkable confirmation of this fact is afforded by Henry Hudson’s journal of his visit to Novaya Zemlya, printed in the Appendix to the present work,165 in which, under the date of 28th June 1608, it is stated that, between eight o’clock on the previous evening and four o’clock in the morning, they were drawn back to the northwards, by a stream or tide, as far as they were the last evening at four o’clock. Applying this, then, to the case of our Dutch navigators, we obtain a satisfactory explanation of the apparent discrepancies in their several data.