sailed from Deptford on the 8th of June; the queen, who was then at Greenwich, looking-on from a window of the palace as they passed by, and waving her hand to them by way of expressing her good wishes and bidding them farewell. Proceeding along the eastern coast, they reached Fara, one of the Shetland Islands, from whence they directed their course westward till they came within sight of the coast of Greenland, upon which, however, they were not able to effect a landing. After this Frobisher entered the strait leading to Hudson's Bay which still bears his name, and landed on some of the adjacent coasts, which he took possession of for the English crown. The loss of some of his men, however, now made him resolve to return home ; and, after encountering a terrible storm, he arrived at Harwich on the 2nd of October. A circumstance that happened some years after the return of this expedition suddenly produced a general excitement respecting it, much greater than had been awakened by the geographical discoveries in which it had resulted. Among other specimens of the produce of the lands he had added to the queen's dominions, Frobisher had brought home with him a piece of heavy black stone, a fragment of which the wife of a person into whose hands it had fallen threw into the fire, when, being taken out again, and quenched in vinegar, it glittered like gold, and, it is said, was afterwards, upon being fused, actually found to contain a portion of that metal. As soon as this was known numbers of people eagerly offered their subscriptions to enable Frobisher to proceed on a second expedition; the queen herself placing at his disposal one of the ships of the royal navy, of two hundred tons burden. With this, and two barks of about thirty tons each, he again set out from Harwich on the 31st of May, 1577. This time no further attempt was made to penetrate to India: the adventurers had been expressly commanded to make the collection of gold-ore their only object; and, accordingly, after having reached Frobisher's Strait, as before, and found a quantity of the black stone on some of the islands where they landed, they prepared to return to England,
