108                      MEMORABLE DISCOVERIES.
seems to have examined very superficially, abounded almost equally in whales, and caused particular astonishment by the extraordinary variation of the needle, to which nothing similar had ever been witnessed. Between these two sounds was an island which was named Hakluyt, after the venerable recorder of early English discoveries.
Proceeding now along the south-western boundary of this great sea, the next " fair sound " received the name of Alderman Jones, a patron of the enterprise. In lat. 74°, there appeared another broad opening which was called Sir James Lancaster's Sound; but while Baffin calls it great, he seems scarcely to have noticed this future entrance into the Polar Sea; od the contrary, he observes, at the very same moment, ;that the hope of a passage became every day less and less. He sailed on; but a barrier of ice prevented him from approaching the shore till he came within the " indraft" of Cumberland's Isles, " where hope of passage could be none."
Finding the health of his crew rather declining, he sailed across to Greenland, where an abundance of scurvy-grass boiled in beer quickly restored them; and "the Lord then sent a speedy and good passage homeward."
On returning, Baffin expressed the most decided conviction that the great sea which he had traversed was a bay enclosed on all sides, and affording no opening into any oeean to the westward; and his judgment was received by the public, who named it from him Baffin's Bay.. He forcibly, however, represented the great opportunities which it afforded for the whale-fishery, as those huge animals were seen sleeping in vast numbers on the surface of the water,