Sir Humphrey Gilbert—Sir Martin Frobisher—His first voyage—The fateful stone—First meeting with the Eskimos—The Cathay Company—Second voyage—Third voyage—Frobisher builds a fort—The ships among the floes—Captain Hall finds the Frobisher relics—Adrian Gilbert—John Davis—His voyages and dealings with the Eskimos—Reaches and names Sanderson's Hope—The Traverse Book—William Baffin—His first voyage to Greenland—His fourth and fifth voyages—Discovers Baffin Land—Discovers Baffin Bay—Smith Sound—Jones Sound—Lancaster Sound—Baffin's farthest north—John Ross and Parry verify his discoveries.

In 1566 Humphrey Gilbert—who was as near to heaven by sea as by land—petitioned Queen Elizabeth for privileges in regard to discoveries "by the North-west to Cataia" as an alternative to a petition he, in conjunction with Anthony Jenkinson, had presented the previous year for a voyage by the north-east. He received no answer; but ten years afterwards, in support of this unanswered petition, he published his Discourse of a Discovery for a New Passage to Cataia. This met with approval, and led, with little delay, to the expedition under the Martin Frobisher who, among other noteworthy services, commanded the Triumph in the Armada fight to such good purpose that he was one of the five distinguished men knighted by Howard in mid-channel after the battle off the Isle of Wight.

Frobisher was a good seaman—but no mineralogist. Mainly at the expense of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and under the business management of that old seafarer, Michael Lock, of the Muscovy Company, he left Blackwall on the 7th of June, 1576, in the Gabriel of twenty-five tons, accompanied by the Michael of twenty tons—which deserted and returned as soon as difficulties arose—and a ten-ton pinnace, which ended by foundering off Greenland. All told, the expedition numbered thirty-five, of whom the Gabriel carried eighteen; and with these the voyage through the Arctic Ocean was to be made to China.

Leaving the Shetlands at her top speed of a league and a half an hour—which her master, good Christopher Hall, proudly recorded—the Gabriel sighted Cape Farewell on the 11th of July. Two days afterwards she was thrown on her beam-ends in a storm, and was rapidly filling with water flowing in at her waist when she was relieved by the loss of her fore-yard and the cutting away of her mizen-mast. Rounding the cape, steering westward when he could among the floating ice, Frobisher reached a high headland at the south-east end of what is now Frobisher Bay, which he named Queen Elizabeth Foreland. A few days afterwards Hall, out in a boat seeking a way through the ice for the ship, landed on what they called Hall's Island, and, noticing a fog coming on, left hurriedly, snatching up, as specimens of the plants, a few grasses and flowers, and, as a rock specimen, a heavy black stone picked up haphazard on the beach. The grass faded, the flowers perished, and the fateful stone remained.

For fifty leagues Frobisher sailed north-westward into the bay, thinking it to be a strait with Asia on the right hand and America on the left. He landed at what he called Butcher's Island, saw "mightie deere which ranne at him and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way where he was faine to use defence and policie," and from a hill-top "perceived a number of small things fleeting in the sea afarre off whyche hee supposed to be porposes or seales or some kind of strange fishe but coming nearer he discovered them to be men in small boates made of leather," who only just failed in capturing his boat before he reached it. Subsequent conferences with the Eskimos ended in his losing the boat with five men who had gone ashore to trade; and finally, having lifted single-handed one of the interesting natives, kayak and all, into the Gabriel, he made sail for home.

When Lock went aboard on the ship's arrival there were no riches from Cathay, nothing worth mentioning beyond the Eskimo—who soon died—the kayak and paddle, and "the fyrste thynge found in the new land," the black stone. He carried away the stone, after chipping off a few fragments for the friends around, and after a week or two's consideration sent some of it to the Mint to be assayed. The report was not as he expected; the "saymaster" was of opinion that it was marcasite, that is, iron pyrites. Not satisfied, Lock sent some to another expert, who also said it was pyrites. Then he tried a third man, who could find no gold in it. And then he tried a fourth—this time an Italian—who gave him the answer he wanted: "A very little powder of gold came thereout."

Lock sent him some more, telling him frankly that three other assayers "could find no such thing therein," but again the Italian was equal to the occasion. "The xviii day of January," writes Lock, "he sent me by his mayde this little scrap of paper written, No. 1, hereinclosed; and thereinclosed the grayne of gold, which afterward I delivered to your majesty." For the Queen had become interested in the wonderful stone which was the talk of the town, its value increasing at every recital until many believed, as Sir Philip Sidney seems to have done, that it was "the purest gold unalloyed with any other metals."

Lock was not the man to let such excellent advertisement be lost, and forthwith he projected the Cathay Company for which the charter was obtained from the Crown on St. Patrick's Day, 1577. Lock was named as Governor for six years with remuneration "for ever" of one per cent on all goods imported; Frobisher was named as Captain by sea and Admiral of the ships and navy of the Company for life with a yearly stipend and one per cent, like Lock, on all goods the Company brought in. Queen Elizabeth—notwithstanding the report from the Mint—headed the list of shareholders with £1000; and Burghley, Howard, Leicester, Walsingham, Hunsdon, Sidney, even Gresham, subscribed for shares in this remarkable company.

To bring home more of the "golden ore," a new expedition was entered upon at once, and on the 26th of May, Whit-Sunday as it happened, Frobisher started on his second voyage. He had three vessels, the Aid of two hundred tons, lent him from the Royal Navy, and the Gabriel and Michael as before, and one hundred and twenty officers and men, of whom thirty were miners and other landsmen, and, in addition, six condemned criminals whom he was to land in Greenland as colonists but put ashore at Harwich instead.

To the new land—named by the Queen Meta Incognita, "the unknown limit of the outward course"—he made his way without much adventure. Landing on Hall's Island, he sought for more stone but could find not so much as a piece as big as a walnut; for Hall, who was again with him as master, had apparently lighted, in the one sample, on the whole of its mineral wealth. This disappointment, however, was forgotten in the finding of occasional patches of pyrites on the mainland and other islands which in due course were visited. Thirty leagues up the bay a landing was made on what was called Countess of Warwick's Island, where more ore was found and a fort called Best's Bulwark was built. That was Frobisher's farthest on this voyage, and thence he sailed on the 24th of August, bringing with him two hundred tons of pyrites, and, as a present for the Queen, a horn two yards long, wreathed and straight, which he had found in the nose of a dead narwhal.

The ore was received with rejoicings. Some of it was deposited in Bristol Castle, some in the Tower of London under four locks, but there was not enough of it; and as there were then, as now, no furnaces in England capable of getting gold out of marcasite, a new expedition was despatched while the furnaces were being prepared. This time the enterprise was to be on a very different scale. Frobisher was given a fleet of fifteen vessels, Drake's old ship, the Judith, amongst them, the Aid, as before, being the flagship. He was to bring home two thousand tons of mineral and find other mines, if he could, besides taking out a colony of a hundred persons to settle in Meta Incognita, for whom the materials of a wooden house were among the miscellaneous cargo.

The fleet left Harwich on the 31st of May, 1578. A landing was made in the south of Greenland, which Frobisher named West England and took possession of, his point of departure from there being called by him, "from a certain similitude," Charing Cross! Soon he was among the ice floes. One of the ships was driven on to a floe and sank with some of the materials for the wooden house. Then followed a storm in which most of the ships had a terrible experience. "Some," says Captain Best of the Ann Frances, the chronicler of the voyage, "were so fast shut up and compassed in amongst an infinite number of great countreys and ilands of ise, that they were fayne to submit themselves and their ships to the mercie of the unmercifull ise, and strengthened the sides of their ships with junckes of cables, beds, masts, planckes, and such like, which being hanged overboord, on the sides of their shippes, mighte the better defend them from the outrageous sway and strokes of the said ise. But as in greatest distresse, men of best value are best to be discerned, so it is greatly worthy commendation and noting with what invincible mind every captayne encouraged his company, and with what incredible labour the paynefull mariners and poore miners (unacquainted with such extremities) to the everlasting renoune of our nation, dyd overcome the brunt of these so great and extreame daungers; for some, even without boorde uppon the ise, and some within boorde, uppon the sides of their shippes, having poles, pikes, peeces of timber and ores in their hands, stood almost day and night, without any reste, bearing off the force, and breaking the sway of the ise, with suche incredible payne and perill that it was wonderfull to behold, which otherwise no doubt had striken quite through and through the sides of their shippes, notwithstanding our former provision; for planckes of timber, of more than three ynches thick, and other things of greater force and bignesse, by the surging of the sea and billow, with the ise were shevered and cutte in sunder at the sides of oure ships, that it will seeme more than credible to be reported of. And yet (that which is more) it is faythfully and playnely to be proved, and that by many substantiall witnesses, that our shippes, even those of greatest burdens, with the meeting of contrary waves of the sea, were heaved up betweene islandes of ise a foote welneere out of the sea above their watermarke, having their knees and timbers within boorde both bowed and broken therewith."

To add to the difficulties of the voyage Frobisher lost his way, and entered what he called the Mistaken Streight—now designated Hudson Strait—through which he might have found his way to Cathay, had he been so minded; but recognising that he was on the wrong road he returned and reached his mining district at the end of July. While the ore was being gathered in, Best ventured into the upper part of Frobisher Bay as far as the Gabriel Islands—the only exploring work that was done—and early in September the fleet departed on the homeward voyage.

Frobisher had left one unmistakable indication of his visit behind him. On Countess of Warwick Island he had built a house of lime and stone, and "the better," says Best, "to allure those brutish and uncivill people to courtesie, againste other times of our comming, we left therein dyvers of our countrye toyes, as bells and knives, wherein they specially delight, one for the necessarie use, and the other for the great pleasure thereof. Also pictures of men and women in lead, men a horsebacke, lookinglasses, whistles and pipes. Also in the house was made an oven, and breade left baked therein, for them to see and taste. We buried the timber of our pretended forte, with manye barrels of meale, pease, griste, and sundrie other good things, which was of the provision of those whyche should inhabite, if occasion served. And insteade therof we fraight oure ships full of ore, whiche we holde of farre greater price."

Here we part from the Cathay Company. The inevitable trouble came with the discovery that, practically, the only gold the ore would yield was that put in as an "additament" by the Italian. A very thick cloud rolled over Frobisher, who, like Lock, seems to have believed in the genuineness of the affair all through; but soon his country had need of him and he came to the front again in so worthy a manner that little more was heard of his connection with this company that failed.

To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred years afterwards) Captain Hall—hearing among the Eskimos how numerous white men had arrived first in two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had killed several natives and taken away two, how five of the white men had been captured, and how these had built a large boat and put a mast in her and sailed away to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn (White Man's Island) and there found the house of lime and stone as described, and traces of the diggings, and many relics among which he made the collection presented by him to the British Government.

In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose Discourse gave so great a stimulus to Arctic discovery, founded St. John's, Newfoundland—the first English colony in America—a patent was granted by Queen Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the county of Devon," as one of the colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart, bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles above Dartmouth—was the home of the three Gilberts (John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose mother by a second marriage became the mother of Carew and Walter Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family also owning property in the small peninsula, was born John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as he signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and certainly a life-long friend, of these five.

Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the Elizabethan navigators, and a man of accurate observation, always on the alert, whose reputation does not rest only on the work he did in the northern and other seas, for he was the author of The Seaman's Secrets, the most popular practical navigation treatise of its time. Very early, perhaps from the first, he was one of the moving spirits in this new north-west enterprise, for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr. Dee-who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary Walsingham had come to his house, where by good luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began on "the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day, "I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed upon in generall"—"rutter" being the French "routier," originating in Le Routier de la Mer, signifying a book of sea routes. Another important friend of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the ships, the Moonshine, seems to have belonged to him, and it was largely owing to his influence among the shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and chief pilot of the "exployt," in which he was to practically rediscover Greenland.

There were two vessels, the Sunshine of London, fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board, and the Moonshine of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he landed on the west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named it, near where Godthaab now is, and entered into communication with the natives.

For such occasions, apparently, he had among the Sunshine people four described as musicians, whom, on sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As soon as they arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his men began to caper as if they were enjoying themselves immensely, while the lookers-on gradually increased in number. "At length," he says, "one of them poynting up to the sunne with his hande would presently strike his brest so hard that we might hear the blowe. This he did many times, before he would any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the Mooneshine, was appointed to use his best policie to gaine their friendshippe: who strooke his breast and poynted to the sunne after their order: which when he had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and one of them came on shoare, to whom we threwe our caps, stockings and gloves, and such other things as then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night comming we bade them farewell, and went aboord our barks."

The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven canoes came up to the ships, their occupants calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee not making any great haste unto them, one of them went up to the top of the rocke, and lept and daunced as they had done the day before, shewing us a seales skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which he did beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a small drumme." Whereupon Davis manned his boats and went to the waterside where they were in their canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after their fashion, they did trust us. So I shooke hands with one of them, and hee kissed my hand, and we were very familier with them. We bought five canoas of them, we bought their clothes from their backs, which were all made of seales skins and birdes skinnes: their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all being commonly sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully persuaded that they have divers artificers among them. Wee had a paire of buskins of them full of fine wooll like bever. Their apparell for heate, was made of bird skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe among them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke thongs like white leather of a good length. Wee had of their darts and oares, and found in them that they would by no meanes displease us, but would give us whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied with whatsoever we gave them. They took great care one of an other: for when we had bought their boates, then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene them that had soulde us his." He describes them as "a very tractable people, voyde of craft or double dealing, and easie to be brought to civiltie or good order," the men of good stature, unbearded, small-eyed, "by whom, as signes would permit, we understood that towards the north and west there was a great sea."

During his stay among these islands he found considerable quantities of wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which whether it came floating any great distance or grew in some island near he did not discover; but he thought it grew further inland because the people had so many darts and paddles which they held of little value and gave away for insignificant trifles. He also found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they were small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow water in large pools, and he notes that the "cliffes were all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta Incognita."

Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed the strait now named after him and reached land in 66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye pester of ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." This mount he named Mount Raleigh, the roadstead he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the mount he named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he called Dyer's Cape, the southern foreland being named Cape Walsingham—all of which names remain. Here white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were found growing low like shrubs, and there were flowers like primroses, though there was no grass.

For three days Davis went coasting downwards, and rounding the southern point of the peninsula, which he named the Cape of God's Mercy, he entered what he afterwards called Cumberland Strait, now Cumberland Gulf, supposing it to be his way to the westward. It was clear of ice; sixty leagues up islands were found, among which a stay was made during five days of very foggy foul weather. On the 15th of August "we heard dogs houle on the shoare, which we thought had bene Wolves, and therefore we went on shoare to kil them; when we came on lande, the dogs came presently to our boate very gently, yet we thought they came to pray upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed two: and about the necke of one of them we found a letheren coller, whereupon we thought them to be tame dogs. Then wee went farther and founde two sleads made like ours in Englande. The one was made of firre, spruse and oken boards, sawen like inch boards; the other was made all of whale bone, and there hung on the toppes of the sleds three heads of beasts, which they had killed. We saw here larkes, ravens, and partriges"—probably rock ptarmigan.

Searching about, it was agreed that the place was all islands, with sounds passing between them; that the water remained of the same colour as the main ocean, whereas in every bay they had been into it became blackish; that a shoal of whales they saw must have come from the west, because to the eastward no whale had been seen; that "there came a violent counter checke of a tide from the south-west against the flood which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintayned"; that the further they ran westward the deeper was the water, "so that hard abord the shoare among these yles we could not have ground in 330 fathoms"; and that, lastly, there was a tide range of six or seven fathoms, "the flood comming from diverse parts, so as we could not perceive the chiefe maintenance thereof." For which six reasons it was determined to continue the voyage to the westward if the weather changed—which it did to worse with the wind unfavourable, so that the ships had to run for shelter and then sail for home, crossing the Atlantic from Greenland in a fortnight. On arrival Davis reported to Walsingham that the North-West Passage was a matter nothing doubtful, but at any time almost to be passed, the sea navigable, void of ice, the air tolerable, and the waters very deep; and a voyage for next year was decided on, for which the merchants of Exeter, Totnes, London, Cullompton, Chard, and Tiverton, and five private subscribers, "did adventure their money"—to the amount of £1175—"with Mr. Adrian Gilbert and Mr. John Davis in a voyage for the discovery of China, the seventh daie of April in the xxviij yeare of the rayne of or. soverayne Ladie Elizabeth."

The fleet, consisting of the Mermaid of one hundred and twenty tons, the Sunshine and Moonshine, and a ten-ton pinnace named the North Star, left Dartmouth on the 7th of May, 1586. On reaching Greenland the Sunshine and North Star were sent up the east coast of Greenland, while the Mermaid and Moonshine made for Gilbert Sound.

Here the Eskimos received them cordially "after they had espied in the boate, some of our companie that were the yeere before heere with us, they presently rowed to the boate, and tooke holde on the oare, and hung about the boate with such comfortable joy as woulde require a long discourse to be uttered: they came with the boates to our shippes, making signes that they knewe all those that the yere before had bene with them. After I perceived their joy, and smal feare of us, my selfe with the merchaunts, and others of the company went a shoare, bearing with me twentie knives: I had no sooner landed, but they lept out of their Canoas, and came running to mee and the rest, and imbraced us with many signes of hartie welcome: at this present there were eighteene of them, and to each of them I gave a knife: they offered skinnes to mee for rewarde, but I made signes that it was not solde, but given them of curtesie: and so dismissed them for that time, with signes that they shoulde returne againe after certaine houres." But soon there were passing troubles owing to iron having so great an attraction for them that they could not resist stealing it. While amongst them, exploring the country, Davis compiled the first Eskimo vocabulary known, a list of some forty words written down phonetically, most of them remarkably good approaches considering that both parties were ignorant of each other's language, none of them, however, except that for "sea" being likely to be of any use in putting him on the road to China.

On leaving Gilbert Sound, Davis when in latitude 63° 8´ "fel upon a most mighty and strange quantity of ice, in one intyre masse, so bigge as that we knew not the limits thereof, and being withall so very high, in forme of a land, with bayes and capes, and like high cliffe land, as that we supposed it to be land, and therefore sent our pinnesse off to discover it: but at her returne we were certainely informed that it was onely ice, which bred great admiration to us all, considering the huge quantity thereof, incredible to be reported in truth as it was, and therefore I omit to speake any further thereof. This onely, I thinke that the like before was never seene, and in this place we had very stickle and strong currants. We coasted this mighty masse of ice untill the 30 of July, finding it a mighty bar to our purpose: the ayre in this time was so contagious, and the sea so pestered with ice, as that all hope was banished of proceeding: for the 24 of July all our shrowds, ropes, and sailes were so frozen, and compassed with ice, onely by a grosse fogge, as seemed to me more then strange, sith the last yeere I found this sea free and navigable, without impediments."

Crossing the straits he repaired and revictualled the Moonshine in an excellent harbour among islands where they found it very hot and were "very much troubled with a flie which is called Musketa, for they did sting grievously." Forsaken by the Mermaid, he abandoned the search in Cumberland Sound as he "found small hope to pass any farther that way," and worked south, it being too late to go northwards, crossing Frobisher Bay, which he described as "another great inlet neere forty leagues broad where the water entered with violent swiftnesse, this we also thought might be a passage, for no doubt the north parts of America are all islands." Off the coast of Labrador he found a vast shoal of codfish, of which he caught over forty with a long spike nail made into a hook. These he salted, and some of them, on his return, he gave, at Walsingham's request, to Burghley, who, at an interview, encouraged him to make a further attempt.

Next year he was off again, this time "to the Isles of the Molucca or the coast of China." He seems to have been on board the Ellen, a small craft of some twenty tons, his two other vessels being the Sunshine as before, and the Elizabeth. These he left to fish for cod in the straits while he went northward from Gilbert Sound in his little "clinker," which he had probably chosen as being handy for ice navigation. Running along the land, to which he gave the name of London Coast, he reached 72° 12´—the highest north up to then attained—where he named the loftiest of the headlands Sanderson's Hope, whose lofty crest piercing through the driving clouds near Upernivik has become perhaps the best-known landmark in the northern seas. Here the wind suddenly shifting to the northward made further progress impossible, and he had to shape his course westerly, and then, owing to ice, which he in vain endeavoured to get round to the north, he had to turn southwards. Amid much fog, and with the ice always present, he came down the coast of Baffin Land, giving a name here and there on the way, until on the 31st of July he passed "a very great gulfe, the water whirling and roring, as it were the meetings of tides," which was probably the entrance to Hudson Strait. Next day he was off the Labrador coast and named Cape Chidley after his friend who died in the Straits of Magellan, and on the 15th of August he laid his course for England.

Of this voyage Hakluyt prints the Traverse Book, one of the earliest known. In it the full detail is given for every day, arranged in nine columns, one each for the month, the day, the hour, the courses, the leagues, the elevation of the pole in degrees and minutes, the wind, and a remarks column headed "The Discourse"—for Davis was an exact and systematic man remarkable for his latitudes never being wrong, though like all those old navigators before the invention of the chronometer, he was frequently out in his longitude. He was going off again bound for the sea north of Sanderson's Hope, but the coming of the Armada and the death of Walsingham caused the postponement of the project he did not abandon, for it seems that the Desire, in which he discovered the Falkland Islands at the other end of America, was to be his reward for accompanying Cavendish round the world, and that in her he intended to make his next Polar voyage.

The work he had set himself to do was done by William Baffin, who first appears in the Arctic record as pilot of the Patience in James Hall's Greenland voyage in 1612, which ended in Hall being killed in revenge for the kidnapping proceedings on the two previous voyages under the Danish flag. Baffin then made two voyages, as we have seen, to Spitsbergen in the service of the Muscovy Company, and, in that of the Company for the Discovery of the North-West Passage, he made his fourth, in 1615. In Hudson's old ship the Discovery, also her fourth trip to the north, he passed up Hudson Strait to the end of Southampton Island, where he abandoned the attempt to get through owing to ice and shallow water, and returned after discovering the land that Parry named after him.

In his fifth voyage, again in the Discovery, with Robert Bylot again as master, he left Gravesend on the 16th of March, 1616, and reached Sanderson's Hope on the 30th of May, discovering the great bay to the north which bears his name. Passing the Women Islands and the Baffin Islands off Cape Shackleton, he took the middle passage across Melville Bay, coasting along by Cape York, by the cape named after one of his directors, Sir Dudley Digges, and the sound named after another of his directors, Sir John Wolstenholme; along Prudhoe Land, entering the North Water of the whalers, reaching Cape Alexander in 77° 45´, his farthest north; opening up and naming Smith Sound, after Sir Thomas Smith, another of his directors, and Jones Sound, after Alderman Sir Francis Jones, another of the board, and Lancaster Sound, after Sir James Lancaster of the East India Company. Thus, coasting Ellesmere Land, North Devon, Bylot Island, and Baffin Land, he continued his voyage from the north on his way home. A good piece of work: the discoveries so many and unexpected that people ceased to believe in them, geographers going so far as to erase his bay from their maps until, two hundred years afterwards, Ross and Parry sailed over the land of the unbelievers and confirmed Baffin's work in every detail—and Ross, in his best mountain-finding manner, reported no thoroughfare at Smith Sound.