Note 180 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

As regards the north-eastern portion of Novaya Zemlya beyond Cape Nassau, Lütke justly argues180 that the general accuracy of Barents’s coast-line, as far as he has been able to check it,—namely, as far as Cape Nassau,—warrants the assumption that those parts which lie beyond that cape are in a similar degree correct; and, accordingly, he adopts from the Dutch map the entire extent of country to the eastward of Cape Nassau, as laid down in De Veer’s chart. This sound conclusion is, however, impugned by Baer,181 who does not hesitate to erase the whole from his predecessor’s map, and to round off the north-eastern extremity of Novaya Zemlya at a short distance beyond Cape Nassau.