Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage by Richard Hakluyt
page 30 of 168 (17%)
page 30 of 168 (17%)
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all along the eastern coasts of America northwards so far as Cape
Frido, being the farthest known place of the same continent towards the north, which is about four thousand eight-hundred leagues, reckoning therewithal the trending of the land. 8. So that this current, being continually maintained with such force as Jacques Cartier affirmeth it to be, who met with the same, being at Baccalaos as he sailed along the coasts of America, then, either it must of necessity have way to pass from Cape Frido through this frith, westward towards Cathay, being known to come so far only to salve his former wrongs by the authority before named; or else it must needs strike over upon the coast of Iceland, Lapland, Finmark, and Norway (which are east from the said place about three hundred and sixty leagues) with greater force than it did from the Cape of Good Hope upon the strait of Magellan, or from the strait of Magellan to Cape Frido; upon which coasts Jacques Cartier met with the same, considering the shortness of the cut from the said Cape Frido to Iceland, Lapland, etc. And so the cause efficient remaining, it would have continually followed along our coasts through the narrow seas, which it doeth not, but is digested about the north of Labrador by some through passage there through this frith. The like course of the water, in some respect, happeneth in the Mediterranean Sea (as affirmeth Contorenus), where, as the current which cometh from Tanais and the Euxine, running along all the coasts of Greece, Italy, France, and Spain, and not finding sufficient way out through Gibraltar by means of the straitness of the frith, it runneth back again along the coasts of Barbary by Alexandria, Natolia, etc. |
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