Page:Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821.djvu/205

Rh to have much opened to the west, the whale fishers extended their pursuit to that point of the compass; and during the fishing season of last year, the ice had sufficiently moved away, to admit not only of the land being seen, but to leave no impediment to the approach towards it. Captain Scoresby, indeed, was so near the shore, that he had an opportunity of landing; but the concerns of the fishing which necessarily occupied his first attention, prevented him from making those investigations and surveys which he would have gladly undertaken. This year he had hoped that the fishing might have led him again to the coast, and that some lucky circumstance might have afforded him an opportunity (without trespassing on the duties of his voyage) of ascertaining the fate of the lost colony, and of fixing the position of the most remarkable points of land. I had also an earnest intention to have gathered such correct geographical descriptions as were in my power, and to have made a faithful delineation of every circumstance interesting to the philosopher and naturalist.

I cannot take my leave of this part of the unknown world, without expressing my anxious desire to exalt the fame of my country in discovery. And although disappointed of being among those who are to take possession of lost Greenland; – to delineate the extent of the country, which, from measurement by latitude and longitude is more than five hundred thousand square miles; to ascertain whether it forms a part of the continent of America in a