WILLIAM, D.D., an eminent explorer of the Arctic regions, the third child of William and L. Mary Scoresby, was born at Cropton, near Pickering, in the county of York, on the 6th of October 1789. He was a delicate, bashful child; was early impressed with a sacred regard to truth, and of the importance of religious duties, qualities which remained with him during life. In 1802 he was for several months sent to school under the care of Mr Stock, in the neighbourhood of Blackwall, where he was instructed in the elements of English grammar, writing, and arithmetic; but the effect of intense application was too much for a delicate constitution. His studies commenced at five in the morning, and continued until the same hour in the evening; with the usual intervals for meals; but besides these lessons, he wrote various exercises at home, and attended occasional lectures of his master on some branches of science in the evenings. There, too, he obtained his first lessons in theoretic navigation.

His inclination for a seaman's life led him, in 1800, to conceal himself in his father's ship, setting out on a Greenland voyage, until the pilot-boat had left the vessel. He was therefore equipped as an apprentice, and adopted the life of a seaman, in which he made such proficiency that, when sixteen years of age, he was advanced to the office of chief mate of the ship. During the intervals of his different Greenland voyages, he studied assiduously, at the school of Mr Routh in Whitby, algebra, geometry, and the application of mathematics to navigation and marine surveying. In these branches he soon found the explanations of his masters (from their want of practical application) neither quite satisfactory nor always intelligible, and his full attainment of these branches was the result of his private studies. He stated that he might have attained some proficiency in Latin from his able master had he had taste for more than the mere elements of that language.

In the winter of 1806 he repaired to Edinburgh, and attended some of the classes in the university; but his profession again recalled him to Whitby in March 1807.

On returning from the Greenland voyage in 1807, he volunteered his services to assist in bringing the Danish fleet to Britain, and for this purpose he sailed from Leith to Copenhagen. He was thus employed three months; for this the government remuneration was the trifling sum of L11, 19s. 2d., including bounty, wages, and travelling expenses! His own account of this incident in his life is thus stated—"Thus ended an adventurous and trying voyage—a voyage in which I voluntarily submitted to every service and privation of the commonest sailor, though from being furnished with introductory letters from naval officers of some consideration, I might probably have fared better had I made use of them; but I wished to take my chance in the ordinary way, that I might have better opportunity, by personal experience, of learning the discipline of the navy, and the duties expected from a seaman in that service." In that same year he was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, of whom he soon became a frequent correspondent.

In 1809 Scoresby made his first assay as harpooner in his father's ship, while still acting as chief mate. On his return he again became a student in the University of Edinburgh, and attended the course of natural history of Professor Jameson, with whom he became intimately Scoresby, acquainted; and he furnished valuable papers to the Wernerian society on the Greenland ice, the meteorology of those regions, and on the Greenland whale.

On the 5th of October 1810, his twenty-first birthday, Mr Scoresby was appointed to the command of the Resolution, Greenlandman, and sailed in her on the following March. His success in this voyage was remarkable, for he captured 30 whales, which yielded 220 tons of oil, the largest quantity that had then been brought to Whitby by a single vessel. The influence of his religious education, and his mature reflections on this important subject now became conspicuous. He did all in his power to promote religious feeling among his crew, called them regularly on Sunday to Divine service, and abstained from pursuing the whale on that day.

On the 25th of September 1811, Mr Scoresby married Miss Mary Eliza Lockwood. Their first child, William, was born in April 1812. In this year he resigned the command of the Resolution, and was appointed to the Esk of Whitby.

In 1813 he made his first series of experiments on the temperature of the ocean at considerable depths, of which an interesting account is given in his capital work, *The Arctic Regions*. In this voyage, as on many other occasions, his judgment and courage were conspicuously displayed, and eminently contributed to the safety of the vessel. For several years his voyages were prosperous; but in 1816 he made a disastrous one, in which the vessel was nearly lost. This disaster induced him to think of retiring from his nautical occupation, but the bankruptcy of a friend, to whom he had lent a large part of his earnings, made him give up the idea, and to trust to Providence for his future success. The equanimity with which he bore this disappointment raised him higher in the estimation of his friends than even his scientific attainments, which had obtained the approbation of the learned.

His letters to Sir Joseph Banks in 1817 had described the vast disruption of the Arctic ices which had recently taken place; and this induced Sir Joseph to memorialize the government on the prosecution of Arctic discovery, in consequence of which that series of expeditions to the North commenced, which distinguished the early half of this century. From Scoresby the admiralty obtained much important information as to Arctic navigation. The proposal made to him it was impossible for him to accept, viz., to go out as pilot in one of the ships, when he was perfectly aware that, in the event of success, the merit would be ascribed to the superior officer, and if unsuccessful, the failure would be imputed to him. He therefore declined the offer, while he expressed his willingness to take the command of the smallest vessel the admiralty would entrust to him, and do his best to bring the expedition to a successful termination. The etiquette of the naval service was considered as an objection, although, when Cooke was sent on his first voyage, he had never served in the British navy.

In 1818 Mr Scoresby became his father's partner in the Greenland ship Fame, which was fitted out at Liverpool, where the writer of this memoir first became acquainted with him, and admired the extent of his acquirements, his happy mode of communicating information, and his extreme modesty. During the voyage of this year Scoresby repeated his experiments on the temperature at great depths of the ocean, and made a curious set of experiments on the effect of the pressure of a great column of water on different kinds of wood, in which the most buoyant of them became so heavy as to sink in water. During this year his second son, Frederick R. H. Scoresby, was born. Both his sons died before their father.

The year 1819 was occupied in superintending the building of his new ship the Baffin, at Liverpool, and in the composition of his admirable work, *The Arctic Regions*, which contains much original information on Polar countries and seas, detailed in a lucid and well-written narrative. It was printed in two octavo volumes of about 500 pages each, illustrated by maps, drawings of animals, &c. His account of the *mycticeus* corrected the common error that the whale in blowing throws out torrents of water, whereas it is vapour condensed by the cold air that has been mistaken for a column of water; and his figures of that whale were the first accurate representations of that animal. In fact, all former representations of it were caricatures of nature.

In the year of its publication appeared a good analysis of Scoresby's works, drawn up by M.M. Rossily and Rossel, addressed to Baron Portal, the French minister of marine, in which the book is much commended and proposed for translation, as important to the commerce of France. The first chapter of volume I gives a succinct history of Arctic voyages; the second gives hydrographic descriptions of those regions; the third is a survey of the Greenland seas; the fourth is dedicated to the polar ices and seas frequented by Arctic whale-fishers; the fifth is a most original account of the climate, temperature, and general atmospherology of those regions, the result of twelve consecutive voyages; the sixth treats of the zoology of the Arctic seas, on which it throws much important light. The appendix to this volume contains his meteorological journal for twelve years in those seas. The second volume is wholly dedicated to the whale-fishery, and contains much important information not elsewhere to be found. The French critics pronounce the work to be "a perfect and complete whole."

In 1820 he made his first and a successful voyage to Greenland in the Baffin, which was found to answer his expectations as to her construction in every respect.

In the voyage of 1821, the philanthropic engineer, Captain Manby, sailed with him for the purpose of trying the efficacy of a new method of capturing the whale, devised by the former, but it did not answer his hopes. In the end of this year Scoresby had another communication with the admiralty respecting the grant of money to any whaler who should discover a new station for the successful prosecution of this important branch of industry, as the usual stations had been deserted by the whale, and the risk of loss in such adventures was becoming more and more imminent, but his representations were unsuccessful.

In the voyage of 1822, Scoresby not only made a very successful whaling voyage, but visited the long-lost eastern coast of Greenland, which he surveyed and beautifully laid down for about 800 miles, between Gale Hamke's Land in Lat. 75° N. and Lat. 69°10' N. He landed at many points of this coast, entered several of its inlets, gave designations to this hitherto nameless region, and carried home specimens of the rocks and plants found where he landed. In a few places he found traces of Esquimaux habitations, even in high latitudes; but the supposed remains of considerable buildings and towns of the Icelandic settlers on this desolate coast, which have been sometimes mentioned, Scoresby has shown to be illusions produced by the remarkable refractions of the ice-bound confines of this land, which so often simulate the creations of human industry. In this voyage he penetrated to within 466 geographic miles of the North Pole, as detailed in the first and second chapters of his *Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery*, where he found the temperature then so low as within 2° or 3° of zero, whence he concludes against the probability of an open sea around the Pole, as imagined by some; the third chapter details his proceedings when in sight of the east coast of Greenland; the fourth gives the commencement of the survey of that coast, which is continued in the succeeding chapters, that contain also most valuable observations on the wonderful atmospheric refrac- The instruments employed in this survey were sextants, Kater's Azimuth compass, and chronometers. He took more than 500 bearings from 50 stations, besides 200 or 300 more for correcting the variation and deviations of his compasses. Four-fifths of these were obtained by intersecting bearings, and one-fifth from single bearings and estimated distances. The appendix contains a list of the rocks and plants he collected; the animals he saw; the latitudes and longitudes of the points of the coast, with speculations on the inhabitants, whose habitations he discovered in various parts of that desolate region. He supposed that there are recent indications of arts beyond those of the Esquimaux, indicating a mixed race as existing in that part of Greenland.

During his voyage of 1822 Mr Scoresby lost his wife; and soon after he determined to give up his nautical pursuits, and resolved to prepare himself for the ministry in the Established Church of England. With characteristic determination he proceeded to supply the defects of his early education in classical learning, and with indomitable perseverance he applied to the study of Latin and Greek. At the suggestion of his friend, Archdeacon Wrangham, he boarded for some time in the house of a clergyman, who directed his classical studies, as a preparation for the University of Cambridge. His acquirements in mathematics and in theology were even already of considerable extent, but he neglected not those important branches while he pursued his classical studies. He became a student of Queen's College, where in due time he obtained the degree of A.M., and had subsequently the honour of D.D. conferred on him. He was admitted into ecclesiastical orders, and soon after was appointed clergyman to the Mariners' Church in Liverpool, which was a large ship, fitted up commodiously for a considerable congregation; and his judicious ministry among the seamen was much appreciated.

In 1828 he married Miss Elizabeth Fitzgerald, an amiable lady of a highly respectable Irish family. Besides his clerical duties, Scoresby was occupied with scientific pursuits, especially in magnetism, which he had long very successfully prosecuted; and he made numerous experiments on the mode of imparting intense magnetic power to steel bars by percussion, when they were placed in the position of the magnetic dip. The percussion might be communicated either by a hammer or by an electric shock. In fact, he had, in the voyage of 1822, discovered that by hammering the steel bar in a vertical position, while it rested on a bar of iron, or better on a magnet of soft steel, he could impart most intense magnetism; and thus, in the event of a ship's compass having its magnetism destroyed by lightning, it could be restored without any complex apparatus. In this way he made magnets of immense power. He also investigated the connection between magnetism and galvanic electricity. On this latter subject a joint paper by him and his friend Dr Truill appeared in The Philosophical Transactions of Edinburgh, vol. ix.

In 1839 he was appointed to the vicarage of the vast parish of Bradford, in his native county, where he sedulously endeavoured to promote the religious and temporal interests of his parishioners. He was especially zealous to secure the education of the young, while attending to the improvement of their elders. His conscientious discharge of these duties became too much for his health, and after some time he found it necessary to resign his charge, and to retire to Torquay, in Devonshire, which became his future home. He made a short voyage to North America in 1844.

He lost his second wife in 1847. Soon after this severe blow, his love of science, and the hope of improving navigation by magnetic observations, led him in 1847 to undertake a second voyage to the United States of America, where he remained till March 1848. He was received with much respect by our Transatlantic brethren, who appreciated his scientific character; and he returned to Europe much pleased with his reception on the other side of the Atlantic.

In 1849, while at Torquay, he met with Miss Georgina Ker, who became his third wife, and added much to his happiness. While residing at Torquay, Scoresby volunteered his gratuitous services as a clergyman to assist the minister of Upton Church, which were thankfully accepted, and much valued by the congregation.

His zeal for the improvement of navigation in iron ships induced him to project a voyage to the southern hemisphere, and his young wife determined to accompany him to Australia. They sailed from Liverpool on 10th February 1853. After remaining in that colony for one month, they returned to Britain on 12th August of that year. During the voyage out and home he made numerous most important observations on the local magnetism of the ship in different positions; and he showed that the best position for the regulating compass was at the main-masthead, as farthest removed from the causes disturbing the magnetic needle; and that by comparing this compass with the usual binnacle compass, the local attraction of the ship could be corrected sufficiently for the purposes of navigation. In the ordinary position of the compass, it is liable to be seriously affected by the local attraction of the ship, in which every upright piece of iron becomes a magnet, with its north pole at its lower end in the northern, and its south pole above in the southern hemisphere.

His papers on magnetism, and the journal of this voyage, were given to General Sabine for publication, who committed the task to Archibald Sabine, Esq., who has brought them out under the title of Journal of a Voyage to Australia, and Round the World, for Magnetical Research.

For some time after his return, his health appeared unbroken; but his respiration began to be affected rather seriously in the winter of 1856. At that period he went to Edinburgh to deliver some lectures in the Philosophical Institution, on the Polar regions, and was taken seriously ill during one of those lectures. After a partial recovery, he paid a visit to Sir M. Shaw Stewart; but his chest now became seriously affected. He returned home, suffered much from dyspepsia, lingered until the 21st of March 1857, when he expired, after severe suffering, which he bore with Christian fortitude and resignation.

The merits of this remarkable man are well known to the scientific world; and his career as a Christian pastor was marked by an earnestness and energy that demand the warmest approbation. Many of his philosophical observations have been published in different parts of Europe, and obtained for their author the high honour of his enrolment among the corresponding members of the French National Institute. His truly amiable disposition endeared him to numerous friends, who honoured him when living, and regretted the loss that society sustained by his decease.