1. It is likely that there should be no through passage by the
north-east whereby to go round about the world, because all seas, as
aforesaid, are maintained by the abundance of water, waxing more
shallow and shelving towards the end, as we find it doth, by
experience, in the Frozen Sea, towards the east, which breedeth
small hope of any great continuance of that sea to be navigable
towards the east, sufficient to sail thereby round about the world.
2. Also, it standeth scarcely with reason that the Indians dwelling
under the Torrid Zone could endure the injury of the cold air, about
the northern latitude of 80 degrees, under which elevation the
passage by the north-east cannot be, as the often experiences had of
all the south part of it showeth, seeing that some of the
inhabitants of this cold climate, whose summer is to them an extreme
winter, have been stricken to death with the cold damps of the air,
about 72 degrees, by an accidental mishap, and yet the air in such
like elevation is always cold, and too cold for such as the Indians
are.
3. Furthermore, the piercing cold of the gross thick air so near
the Pole will so stiffen the sails and ship tackling, that no
mariner can either hoist or strike them - as our experience, far
nearer the south than this passage is presupposed to be, hath taught
us - without the use whereof no voyage can be performed.
4. Also, the air is so darkened with continual mists and fogs so
near the Pole, that no man can well see either to guide his ship or
to direct his course.
5. Also the compass at such elevation doth very suddenly vary,
which things must of force have been their destruction, although
they had been men of much more skill than the Indians are.
6. Moreover, all bays, gulfs, and rivers do receive their increase
upon the flood, sensibly to be discerned on the one side of the
shore or the other, as many ways as they be open to any main sea, as
the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, Sinus Bodicus, the
Thames, and all other known havens or rivers in any part of the
world, and each of them opening but on one part to the main sea, do
likewise receive their increase upon the flood the same way, and
none other, which the Frozen Sea doth, only by the west, as Master
Jenkinson affirmed unto me, and therefore it followeth that this
north-east sea, receiving increase only from the west, cannot
possibly open to the main ocean by the east.
7. Moreover, the farther you pass into any sea towards the end of
it, of that part which is shut up from the main sea, as in all those
above-mentioned, the less and less the tides rise and fall.
