2 SPITSBERGEN chap, i 



pushing its warm waters towards the Pole, melts in the ice- 

 covered sea a bay of open water. This bay extends in 

 summer to the 8oth and sometimes even to the 82nd parallel 

 of north latitude, and thus forms an exceptionally easy 

 avenue of approach towards the polar regions. Spitsbergen 

 skirts, through several degrees of latitude, the eastern side 

 of this open bay. The waters of the Gulf Stream impinge, 

 it is said, upon the long mountainous island, named (in King 

 James I.'s days) Prince Charles' Foreland, then pass round 

 its northern and southern ends and open ways to the actual 

 coast of the main island. 



The name Spitsbergen properly applies only to this 

 main island, along whose western margin stand a series of 

 mountains composed of hard archaean rocks, often splin- 

 tered into sheer and striking peaks, whereof the reader of 

 this volume, it is hoped, will derive some idea. Associated 

 with the main island are a number of others forming an 

 archipelago. Three are of considerable size. North-East 

 Land, whose position is indicated by its name, is the most 

 remote. Edges Land (otherwise called Stans Foreland) and 

 Barendsz Land are separated from one another and from 

 Spitsbergen by very narrow channels, and indeed practically 

 form its south-east limb. The remaining islands are small 

 and numerous — the summits of submerged mountains or 

 table-lands resembling similar portions of the neighbouring 

 land. 



Some fifty-rive miles east of Barendsz Land and twenty- 

 five miles south of North-East Land is a group of rather 

 large islands properly called Wiches Land, but now generally 

 known as King Carl's Land. These we had the rare good 

 fortune to approach very closely, a thing seldom possible. 

 Somewhere to the east of North-East Land is likewise an 

 island or group of islands named Gillis Land, not known to 

 have been attained by man. Our attempt to gain sight of 



