SPiTZBERGEN. 93 



tlie occasional resort of persons, drawn tliitlier for 

 purposes of hunting and fishing, does not appear to 

 have ever been inhabited. It lies between the la- 

 titudes 76° 30' and 80° 7' N., and between the lon- 

 gitudes of 9° and perhaps 22° E. ; but some of the 

 neighbouring islands extend at least as far north as 

 80' 40', and still farther towards the east than the 

 mainland of Spitzbergen. The western part of this 

 country was discovered by Barentz, Heemskerke 

 and Xlyp, in two vessels fitted out of Amsterdam, 

 on the 19th of June 1596, who, from the nume- 

 rous peaks and acute mountains observed on the 

 coast, gave it the appropriate name of Spitzbergen, 

 signifying sharp mountains. It was afterwards 

 named Netdand, or King James' Nexi'land, and 

 then Greenland, being supposed to be a continuation 

 towards the cast of the country so called by the 

 Icelanders. It was rediscovered by Henry Hudson, 

 an English navigator, in 1607, and four years af- 

 terv,ards became the resort of the English, for 

 the purpose of taking whales, since which period, 

 its shores have annually been visited by one or 

 other of the nations of Europe, with the same ob- 

 ject, to the present time. And though the soil of 

 the whole of this remote country does not produce 

 vegetables suitable or sufficient for the nourish- 

 ment of a single human being, yet its coasts and 

 adjacent seas have afforded riches and indepen- 

 dence to thousands. 



