The next English mariner to win fame for himself by his adventures in the Arctic seas was Martin Frobisher, who, under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth, the Earl of Warwick, a well-known merchant named Lok and others, fitted out a fleet of three cockle-shells, the united burden of which was only 73 tons, and set sail in 1576, with intent to discover the North-West Passage. The chief result of Frobisher’s voyage was a vast mass of very misleading information. On reaching Davis Strait he came to the conclusion that it bisected Greenland, an error which retained its place in the maps for some three centuries. In the middle of the strait he discovered an island which did not exist, while he brought home with him the interesting information that large deposits of gold existed on the shores which he had visited. On the strength of this all sorts of plans for working these deposits were taken up, which only ended in the financial loss and bitter disappointment of their promoters. Frobisher undertook the command of two subsequent expeditions, but neither of them resulted in any discoveries of much value. His name, however, will always be kept alive by the discovery of Frobisher and Hudson Straits, both of which he entered on his first journey. We now come to by far the most important of these early voyages, namely that made by John Davis, of Sandridge, in 1585. Davis was a splendid old sea-dog of the finest type—shrewd, patient, and of absolutely indomitable courage. So high was his reputation, that when a number of merchants, headed by William Saunderson, determined to fit out a new expedition for the discovery of the North-West Passage, they offered him the command, and their offer was promptly accepted. The expedition, which consisted of two ships, the _Sunshine_, of 50 tons, and carrying twenty-three men, and the _Moonshine_, 35 tons, and carrying nineteen men, started on June 7, and by July 19 it was off the south-east coast of Greenland, where Davis heard for the first time the grinding together of the great icepacks. The shore looked so barren and forbidding—“lothsome” is the epithet which Davis applied to it—that he named it “Desolation.” Rounding the southern point of Greenland and bearing northward, he soon reached lat. 64°, where he moored his ships among some “green and pleasant isles,” inhabited by natives who were very friendly disposed and quite ready to trade with him. From these he learnt that there was a great sea towards the north and west, so he set sail and shaped his course W.N.W., expecting to get to China. Crossing the strait which now bears his name, he sighted land in 66° 40′ and anchored in Exeter Sound. The hill above them they named Mount Raleigh; the foreland to the north, Cape Dyer; and that to the south, Cape Walsingham—names which they still bear. The season was too far advanced for him to attempt to explore the sound, but he discovered the wealth of those