Baffin
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Baffin. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
WILLIAM, an English navigator and discoverer, believed to have been born in London about 1584; but the earliest known fact regarding him is that he sailed in 1612 as pilot of the "Patience" from Hull, on a voyage of discovery to Greenland. In 1613-1614 he served in the Spitzbergen whale fishery, and he wrote an account of this and his previous voyage. In 1615 he took serv- Disice with a company as pilot of the " covery," in search of a northwest passage Hudand made a careful examination of son Strait. His recorded latitudes and notes of the tides are in remarkable agreement with those of a later date. In the following year, with Capt. Bylot, he discovered, charted, and named Smith Sound, and several others, and explored now associated with his the large inlet name. Later investigation has confirmed his descriptions. His last voyages, 1616- 1621, were to the East. At the siege of Ormuz, which the English were helping the Shah of Persia to recover from the 1622. Portuguese, he was killed, Jan. 23, See "Voyages of William Baffin, 1612- 1622," edited by C. R. Markham (1880).
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
William, an English navigator and writer. The date of his birth is not known. He was killed in 1622 in a fight with the Portuguese on an island in the Persian Gulf. He was pilot of the "good ship Discovery," which, in 1615, tried to find the Northwest Passage. On his return, Baffin wrote an account of the voyage. The original manuscript is preserved in the British Museum . The "Discovery" was the earliest English ship to visit the broad expanse between Greenland and British America . The name of the navigator has been preserved in Baffin Bay and Baffin Land.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biographical facts in both accounts still hold: Baffin sailed the "Discovery" in 1615, was killed at Ormuz in 1622, and Collier's judgment in 1921 that "later investigation has confirmed his descriptions" remains the settled view. What has changed is the map. "Baffin Land," as Aiton's called it in 1910, is now Baffin Island, and since 1 April 1999 it has formed the eastern bulk of Nunavut, Canada's Inuit territory; the region is also known by its Inuktitut name, Qikiqtaaluk. The Northwest Passage that Baffin sought was finally navigated by Roald Amundsen in 1903-06, and in recent decades summer sea ice has thinned enough that commercial ships pass through waters Baffin could only probe at the edge of.
Written for this edition, 2026.