WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING An Historical Account of the Dutch , English , and American Whale Fisheries ; some Important Observations on the Variation of the Compass , &c.; and some Extracts from Mr. Scoresby’s Paper on “ Polar Ice .” BY JOHN LAING, SURGEON . A NEW EDITION. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR . 1825 . PRINTED BY A. BALFOUR & CO ....

In the year 1806, being at the University of Edinburgh, an advertisement was put on the College Gate, by Messrs. P. and C. Wood, merchants, Leith, intimating that a surgeon was wanted for the ship Resolution of Whitby, Yorkshire, engaged in the North Sea whale-fishery. Impelled by curiosity, and by a still more powerful motive, to visit the snow-clad coast of Spitzbergen, I applied; and was, after due examination, admitted surgeon for the voyage. Nothing particular occurred on my journey from th

In order to make this little work as complete as possible, I have annexed the following accounts of the Dutch, English, and American whale-fisheries. The two former I have compiled from authentic documents, and the latter is extracted from the late valuable work of Mr. Pitkin on the Commerce of the United States. Dutch Whale Fishery. —Towards the latter end of the sixteenth century, the whale-fishing on the coast of Spitzbergen became considerable. It was entirely in the hands of the English til

During the publication of this little work, I was favoured, through the medium of a friend, with some very important remarks made by a Gentleman of great nautical skill and experience, in the year 1814, on board his Majesty’s ship Sybyll, while in the North Seas, for the protection of the Greenland fishery. The first point to which he alludes, is the variation of the compass; and, respecting it, he observes, “Being anxious that every thing possible should be done for the improvement of navigatio

In the Appendix to the second volume of Flinders’ Voyage, which has lately been published, there is an article of considerable length and ability, on the Variation of the Compass. In that article, the observations made by that excellent sailor, corroborate, in a remarkable degree, and accord with those made in the Sybyll. I have selected a few of the most decisive instances. After such a coincidence, the fact of the variations depending greatly on the ship’s course cannot possibly be called in q

The following article, “ ON THE TREMENDOUS CONCUSSIONS OF THE FIELDS OF ICE ,” in the Arctic Sea, is extracted from Mr. Scoresby’s valuable Memoir on “Polar Ice” in the Wernerian Society’s Transactions. “The occasional rapid motion of fields, with the strange effects produced on any opposing sub stance, exhibited by such bodies, is one of the most striking objects this country presents, and is certainly the most terrific. They not unfrequently acquire a rotatory movement, whereby their circumfer

On the approximation towards the Poles, and on the possibility of reaching the North Pole. From Mr. Scoresby’s paper in the Wernerian Society’s Transactions. “We have already remarked, that the 80th degree of north latitude is almost annually accessible to the Greenland whale-fishers, and that this latitude, on particular occasions, has been exceeded. In one of the first attempts which appears to have been made to explore the circumpolar regions, in the year 1607, Henry Hudson penetrated the ice