hat way. As: 1. By a
Navigation from Amsterdam into the North-Pole, and two Degrees
beyond it. 2. By a Navigation from Japan towards the North-Pole. 3.
By an Experiment made by the Czar of Muscovy, whereby it appears,
that to the Northwards of Nova Zembla is a free and open Sea as far
as Japan, China, etc. With a Map of all the Discovered Lands neerest
to the Pole. By Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King's most
Exellent Majesty. London, 1674."

The most remarkable passage in this scarce little book is the
following:--

"Being about twenty-two years ago in Amsterdam, I went
into a drinking-house to drink a cup of beer for my
thirst, and sitting by the public fire, among several
people, there happened a seaman to come in, who, seeing a
friend of his there, whom he knew went in the Greenland
voyage, wondered to see him, because it was not yet time
for the Greenland fleet to come home, and asked him what
accident brought him home so soon; his friend (who was the
steer-man aforsaid in a Greenland ship that summer) told
him, that their ship went not out to fish that summer, but
only to take in the lading of the whole fleet, to bring it
to an early market. But, said he, before the fleet had
caught fish enough to lade us, we, by order of the
Greenland Company, sailed unto the north pole and back
again. Whereupon (his relation being novel to me) I
entered into discourse with him, and seemed to question
the truth of what he said; but he did ensure me it was
true, and that the ship was then in Amsterdam, and many of
the seamen belonging to her to justify the truth of it;
and told me, moreover, that they had sailed two degrees
beyond the pole. I asked him if they found no land or
islands about the pole? He told me, No, they saw no ice; I
asked him what weather they had there? He told me fine
warm weather, such as was at Amsterdam in the summer time
and as hot."[153]

In addition to these stories there were several contributions to a
solution of the problem, which Wood himself collected, as a
statement by Captain Goulden, who had made thirty voyages to
Spitzbergen, that two Dutchmen had penetrated eastward of that group
of islands to 89 deg. N.L.; the observation that on the coast of
Corea whales had been caught with European harpoons in them;[154]
and that driftwood eaten to the heart by the sea-worm was found on
the coasts