Let me now deal with one or two possible objections. First it may be urged that the version of the passage which specifies Hvarf as the objective may be wrong, and that the coast of Greenland immediately west of Snæfellsnes is the point of measurement. The words ‘west to Greenland’, which take the place of any mention of Hvarf in the alternative reading, may seem to bear out this view, but a glance at the chart will show that all the courses laid down must be interpreted with considerable freedom, and that Hvarf answers as closely to west of Iceland as, say, Ireland to south of Reykjanes. The real answers to the objection, however, are first that no one can ever have completed an uninterrupted voyage to a point in Greenland due west of Snæfellsnes, having regard to the ice barrier which at this point intervenes between the coast and the open sea; and next that the distance to Greenland due west of Snæfellsnes, about sixteen degrees of longitude, is at least 400 miles, and is therefore an equally impossible distance to cover in forty-eight hours sailing. Finally, it is surely more probable that a point regularly passed on the voyage between Iceland and Greenland should be chosen for measurement than an undefined locality in an unexplored region hundreds of miles out of the track of practical navigation. The next objection will possibly be that I have measured the distance on the rhumb-line, whereas it appears from the old sailing directions that this was by no means the usual course adopted. The course laid down in the directions attributed to Ivar Bardson appears to lie west for a day and a night and then in a south-westerly direction parallel to the belt of ice. Now first of all it must be remembered that a rhumb-line course is not actually the shortest, and if a day and a night due west be laid down on the chart and the remainder of the distance be calculated from say longitude 29·45 W., the resulting distance will not be very materially increased, but will come to somewhere about 645 miles, which can still be covered in four days, at a rate of about 6·7 knots. In point of fact probably all the courses with which I am dealing would in practice be longer than I have estimated them, and the average rate which I have deduced from them should be slightly increased, while the same does not apply to the rate of eight knots which I have taken as the maximum, since in this case a liberal allowance for deviation has already been made. If it be said that my maximum and average rates are in such circumstances brought rather close together, I reply that in fact a gale does not bring with it a very great advantage in speed over a fair sailing breeze, as the effect of the sea raised is to neutralize much of the gain which might otherwise be anticipated. If the distance actually travelled between Snæfellsnes and Hvarf be increased even to 700 miles, the rate is not much over seven knots, or well within the limits assigned. For these