Note 168 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

The next point to be noted is Loms Bay, which is stated by De Veer to lie under 74⅓°;168 the observation not being further particularized, as in most other cases. This would make its difference of longitude from Langenes to be 55′; whereas, in De Veer’s map, the difference is only 20′. Lütke169 identifies Loms Bay with Cross Bay, though without sufficiently stating his reasons for so doing. Baer170 follows Lütke’s example, saying, however, still less on the subject. The latitude of Cross Bay is 74° 10′ (Lütke says 74° 20′, but this must be an error, as his map shows 10′, as does that also of Ziwolka), making a difference of 25′ from Dry Cape. This would agree with De Veer’s map, and might, in this case, constitute a reason for considering the latitude of Loms Bay, as stated by him in his text in so very general a way, less trustworthy than that in his map. De Veer also gives171 a separate plan of Loms Bay, which neither Lütke nor Baer alludes to, evidently from their not being acquainted with it. On a comparison of this special plan, as also of De Veer’s general chart, with the Russian maps, it seems much more probable that Loms Bay is not Cross Bay, but the bay immediately to the south of it. For Cross Bay is, in fact, not a bay, but an extensive inlet, of which the end has not yet been explored, and which is indeed regarded by the best Russian authorities as forming a strait or passage completely across Novaya Zemlya, and communicating with Rosmuislov’s Unknown Bay.172 The Dutch, however, anchored in Loms Bay, went ashore, erected a beacon there, and made a plan of the surrounding country; so that they must assuredly have ascertained whether Loms Bay was a bay or strait. Moreover, they distinctly describe a “great wide creek or inlet”173 as lying to the north-east of Loms Bay, which is also shown in their plan, and which cannot be any other than Cross Bay itself; and from this alone it would seem to follow that the bay to the south of that inlet must be Loms Bay. Had Lütke made a careful survey of the bay, which he was prevented from doing, and had he also been acquainted with the Dutch plan, he would no doubt have been able to set this point at rest. Meanwhile we deem ourselves justified, from what has been adduced, in regarding the Flache Bay of Lütke, or the Seichte Bay of Ziwolka (both terms meaning “Shallow Bay”), as the Loms Bay of the Dutch; and hence Cross Bay will be their “great wide creek or inlet,” while Lütke’s Cape Prokofyev and Wrangel’s Island174 will be respectively their “Capo de Plantius” and their “small Island seawards from the point.”