The question of the existence of a navigable communication between the European and the Chinese seas, by the north, is one which has been long in agitation without being resolved, and has been often revived, with the most sanguine expectations of success, to be again abandoned as hopeless. The first attempts to reach China by sea, were made by steering along the coast of Africa toward the south, and the next, by proceeding from the European shore in a westerly direction. The former, which first proved successful, was accomplished by Vasquez de Gama, a Portuguese, in the year 1497-8; and the latter was undertaken by the renowned navigator, Columbus, in 1492. The notion of steering to India by the north-west, as the shortest way, was suggested about the middle or latter end of the fifteenth century, by John Vaz Costa Cortereal, who performed a voyage to Newfoundland about the year 1463-4; or, according to a more general opinion, by John Cabot, the father of the celebrated Sebastian Cabot, who attempted the navigation in 1497, and perhaps also in 1494-5. The idea of a passage to India by the North Pole was suggested by Robert Thorne, merchant of Bristol, as early as the year 1527; and the opinion of a passage by the north-east was proposed soon afterwards. The universal interest which has been attached to this question of a sea communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by the north, ever since it was first suggested, about three hundred and thirty or three hundred and fifty years ago, is fully proved by the facts, that the speculation has never but once been abandoned by the nations of Europe for more than twenty-five years together, and that there have been only three or four intervals of more than fifteen years in which no expedition was sent out in search of one or other of the supposed passages, from the year 1500 down to the present time. And it is not a little surprising that, after nearly a hundred different voyages have been undertaken with a view of discovering the desired communication with the Indian seas, all of which have failed, Britain should again revive and attempt the solution of this interesting problem. Several facts may be brought forward, on which arguments of no mean force may be founded, in support of the opinion of the existence of a sea communication by the north between Europe and China. They may be enumerated in order.