Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/280

 , as well as of the declination of the needle; and in the latitude of 63° 11′ 12″, he found an excellent harbour, Amitoarsuk, which he has surveyed, but the details and many of the results have not arrived, the extract from his journals containing only a few latitudes and a single longitude taken by lunar distances. At the bottom of a bay, latitude 61° 10′, he found a three-pound iron gun, of what country could not be ascertained, but which seems to date from the end of the seventeenth century, and has probably belonged to a whale-ship that was lost. At 63° 36′ latitude, the natives pretend to have seen, about the end of July, 1829, a ship. in the open sea, at a very great distance; it would be interesting to know if, at that time, any whaler attempted to pass between Iceland and Greenland, and in what state it found the ice. The last inhabitants whom M. Graah found on that coast informed him, that he would find others still farther north, and but a little way off. It is to be hoped, therefore, that he has since reached them, and that he will in this way procure us further particulars regarding this coast, having been so successful in his first attempt.'

No information of Captain Graah's further progress has as yet, however (Sept. 1831), been received. Meanwhile it may be added, that if he succeed in gaining latitude 69° N this whole coast will have been recently examined as far as 75°, Captain Scoresby's survey of it, in 1822, having ranged between these parallels.



' have been favoured with an interesting account of some successful attempts made with great energy and perseverance by Mr. Samuel Briggs, of Alexandria, to find water in the Desert, between Suez and Cairo. This is not only an important discovery for the natives of the country, but will also prodigiously facilitate the intercourse with India by steam.

The first experiments were made in the valley of Kesche, where the workmen bored, in one instance, to the depth of one hundred and sixty feet, through a fine sandstone, mixed with clay, without finding any humidity; and in another place to the depth of fifty feet, principally through a rock composed of fragments of silex and jasper, where .they met with a hard rock which broke the instruments, and the attempt was consequently relinquished on that spot. The operations were transferred to the valley of (Candelli. Here water has been found in a clayey stratum, at the depth of only thirteen feet, where a well is already established, to which the Arabs come for their daily supply. Above the clay is