«*!>'*.V'>-J'i\'. 







'f'^wSS*^'-^ 



Figure 2-25. — Jan Mayen Island. 



rising, as it does, from the shore steeply to greater heights than 

 any other mountain that stands by the sea," Stefansson writes of it. 



Bear Island is situarted 160 miles south of Spitsbergen in latitude 

 74°30' N. It has very changeable weather and is beaten by a 

 heavy surf since it is along the storm path of the North European 

 Sea. It is almost constantly shrouded in fog. July mean tem- 

 perature is 40° F. There are no harbors. Drift ice surrounds 

 the island about half the year. The northern two-thirds is a plain 

 with a 100-foot high cliffed coast, gradually rising to 400 feet. 

 Adjoining the plain is a high plateau which falls off in the South 

 to the sea in vertical walls as much as 1,200 feet high. It has been 

 estimated that coal deposits to the amount of 200 million tons are 

 on the island. 



Vaigach is a small rectangular island lying near 70° N., 60° E. 

 It is separated from the Soviet mainland by the narrow Yugor Shar, 

 one of the three straits leading from the Barents Sea into the 

 Kara Sea. 



Novaya Zemlya to the northward is a long, narrow double island. 

 It is separated at latitude 74°30' N. by the fiordlike strait called 



84 



