Frobisher reached England on his return in the following October, and on his arrival presented the stone to one of his friends, an adventurer in the voyage. The wife of this gentleman accidentally threw it into the fire, where it remained for some time, when it was taken out and quenched in vinegar. It then appeared of a bright gold color, and on being submitted to a goldfinder in London, was said to be rich in gold; and large profits were promised if the ore was sufficiently abundant. [Illustration This cut follows the engraving in the Hakluyt Society’s edition of _Frobisher’s Voyages_.] With this report, there was little difficulty in providing means for a second voyage. The new expedition consisted of a “tall ship of her Majesty’s,” named the “Ayde,” of two hundred tons, and of two smaller vessels, with the same names as those in the former voyage, but now said to be of thirty tons each. They were manned in all by one hundred and twenty men, to which number Frobisher was limited by his orders. After some delay, he sailed from Harwich on the 31st of May, 1577. By his orders he was directed to proceed at once to the place where the mineral was found, and set the miners at work. There he was to leave the “Ayde,” and then to sail to another place visited on his first voyage, where a further attempt at mining was to be made, and where one of the small barks was to be left. With the remaining bark he was to sail fifty or a hundred leagues farther west, to make “certayne that you are entred into the South Sea; and in yo^r passage to learne all that you can, and not to tarye so longe from the ‘Ayde’ and worckmen but that you bee able to retorne homewards w^{th} the shippes in due tyme.” If the mines should prove less productive than it was hoped they would be, he was to “proceade towards the discovering of Cathaya w^{th} the two barcks, and returne the ‘Ayde’ for England agayne.”[190] Frobisher had his first sight of Friesland on the 4th of July; and he reached Milford Haven, in Wales, on his return voyage, about the 23d of September. During this period of a little more than two months, his energies were mainly devoted to procuring ore, of which, in twenty days, he obtained nearly two hundred tons; but he also made as careful an examination as was practicable of the region previously visited by him, and added something to the stock of geographical knowledge. Two of the natives were captured, and were carried to England to be educated as interpreters.