BEAR ISLAND 13 



of the cliffs, that tower up perhaps four hundred 

 feet from the water, with a thin layer of soil in which 

 the scurvy-grass and a few other plants thrive amaz- 

 ingly, though the island's complete flora contains but 

 forty species such is Bear Island, the stepping-stone 

 to Spitsbergen, of which Jonas Poole took possession 

 in 1609 for the Muscovy Company. 



Lying east of the influence of the Gulf Stream, 

 the range of temperature is of the widest. Often 

 the island is unapproachable owing to the ice, some- 

 times it is even now as hot as Welden found it in 1608, 

 when, in June, "the pitch did run down the ship's 

 sides, and that side of the masts that was to the sun- 

 ward was so hot that the tar did fry out of it as 

 though it had boiled." That was a great year for 

 Welden, for he killed a thousand walruses in less than 

 seven hours and took a young one home with him, 

 " where the king and many honourable personages 

 beheld it with admiration, the like whereof had never 

 before been seen alive in England." 



Poole did much useful work in these seas, but is now 

 little heard of, most of the surviving interest in such 

 matters being concentrated on Henry Hudson, who 

 was in the same service at the same time. Hudson 

 was, perhaps, a grandson of Alderman Henry Hudson, 

 one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, but 

 nothing is really known of him beyond his being a 

 captain in the Muscovy Company, who, on the 19th of 

 April, 1607, took the sacrament at St. Ethelburga's, 

 in Bishopsgate Street, with his son and crew " and the 

 rest of the parishioners." That he was a parishioner 

 may be true, but that all the ten members of the crew 



