OPEN SEA AT THE POLE.
The following fact is striking: In 1662–3, Mr. Oldenburg, Secretary to the Royal Society, was ordered to register a paper entitled “Several Inquiries concerning Greenland, answered by Mr. Gray, who had visited those parts.” The nineteenth query was, “How near any one hath been known to approach the Pole. Answer. I once met upon the coast of Greenland a Hollander, that swore he had been but half a degree from the Pole, showing me his journal, which was also attested by his mate; where they had seen no ice or land, but all water.” Boyle mentions a similar account, which he received from an old Greenland master, on April 5, 1765.