e a great part of their force long after they have entered
it.[3] The great quantity of birds seen here was an additional proof
that land was not far off. It may be asked, whether this land be
inhabited or not? For my part I believe it is. It may be again asked,
How men should live in such a climate, in the lat. of 70 deg. S. where the
winter is so very long, the summer so short, and where they must be
involved for so great a portion of the year in perpetual night? To
this I answer, That such as dwell there come only in the fine season
in order to fish, and retire on the approach of winter, as is done by
many of the inhabitants of Russia and of Davis Straits, who, when they
have provided themselves with fish on the coasts of a frozen climate,
retire farther inland, and eat in their cabins during the winter
the fish they have caught in the summer. If the people who inhabit
Greenland and Davis Straits are to be believed, the country is
inhabited even as high as 70 deg. N. both winter and summer; and what is
practicable in one country, cannot justly be reputed impracticable
when supposed in another.[4]

[Footnote 2: This is quite erroneous, as it is now well known that
the sea water freezes, when reduced to a sufficient degree of cold,
considerably lower than what is requisite for freezing fresh water. On
this occasion, the salt precipitates from the freezing water, and the
ice of sea water is sufficiently fresh for use when melted, if the
first running be thrown away, which often contains salt, either
adhering to the surface, or contained in cells.--E.]

[Footnote 3: This is poor reasoning to support a preconceived theory
of a southern continent, and might easily have been answered by
themselves, as the prodigious current which set them through the
Straits of Le Maire with such rapidity, could not have originated from
any such cause. Currents are well known to be occasioned by the
tides, the diurnal revolution of the earth, and by prevailing winds,
influenced and directed by the bendings of coasts, the interposition
of islands, and the position of straits. No such currents could
possibly come from rivers in an austral land, locked up in ever-during
frost, should any such land exist.--E.]

[Footnote 4: It might be asked, whence are these fishers to come?
Not surely from among the miserable inhabitants of Terra del Fuego.
A miserable hypothesis is thus often obstinately defended by wretched
arguments.--E.]

Being drive