r
dispute, stating the bare facts, leaving each reader to draw his own
conclusions, though it seems to me a little foolish to contend that the
claim of the 48th degree was an afterthought interpolated by the writer
to stretch British possessions over a broader swath; for even two
hundred years after the issue of the Silver Map of the World, when Cook
was on this coast, so little was known of the west shores of America by
Englishmen that men were still looking out for a Gamaland, or imaginary
continent in the middle of the Pacific.

The words of the narrative bearing on America are: "We came to 42
degree of North latitude, where on the night following (June 3) we
found such alterations of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our
men in general did grievously complain thereof, some of them feeling
their health much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in
the night alone, but the day following carried with it not only the
markes, but the stings and force of the night. . .; besides that the
pinching and biting air was nothing altered, the very ropes of our ship
were stiffe, and the rain which fell was an unnatural congealed and
frozen substance so that we seemed to be rather in the frozen Zone than
any where so neere unto the sun or these hotter climates . . . it came
to that extremity in sayling but two degrees farther to the northward
in our course, that though seamen lack not good stomachs . . . it was a
question whether hands should feed their mouths, or rather keepe from
the pinching cold that did benumme them . . . our meate as soone as it
was remooved from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen up,
and our ropes and tackling in a few days were growne to that
stiffnesse . . . yet would not our general be discouraged but as well
by comfortable speeches, of the divine providence, and of God's loving
care over his children, out of the Scriptures . . . the land in that
part of America, beares farther out into the West than we before
imagined, we were neerer on it than we were aware; yet the neerer still
we came unto it, the more extremity of cold did sease upon us. The
fifth day of June, we were forced by contrary windes to runne in with
the shoare, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad
bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where we were
not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes
that beate upon us, which if they ceased, and we