96 THE FOREST LANDS Of NORTHERN RUSSIA. 
‘The merchants of Amsterdam,’ writes the author of 
The Arctic World: its Plants, Animals, and Natural 
Phenomena,* ‘having fitted out a ship—the Mercurius, of 
one hundred tons—to attempt a passage round the northern 
and of Novaia Zemlaia, the command was given to William 
Barents ; who accordingly sailed from the Texel on the 4th 
of June 1594, 
‘He sighted Novaia Zemlaia, in lat. 73° 25’ N., on the 
4th July, sailed along its grim, gaunt coast, doubled Cape 
Nassau on the 10th, and struck the edge of the northern 
ice on the 13th. For several days he skirted this formid- 
able barrier, vainly seeking for an opening; and in quest 
of a channel into the further sea he sailed perseveringly 
from Cape Nassau to the Orange Islands. He went over no 
fewer than seventeen hundred miles of ground in his assi- 
duous search, and put his ship about one-and-eighty times. 
He discovered also the long line of coast between the two 
points we have named, laying it down with an exactness 
which has been acknowledged by later explorers. His men 
wearying of labour which seemed to yield no positive 
results, Barents was under the necessity of returning home. 
‘In 1596 the Amsterdammers fitted out another expe- 
dition, consisting of two strongly-built ships, under Jacob 
van Heemskerch and Jan Cornelizoon Rijp, with Barents 
as pilot, though really in command. 
‘In this voyage the adventurers kept away from the 
land in order to avoid the pack-ice, and sailing to the 
westward, discovered Bear Island on the 9th of June. 
Then they steered to the northward, and hove in sight of 
Spitzbergen exactly ten days later. They supposed, how- 
ever, that it was ouly a part of Greenland, and were led to 
bear away to the north-west—a course which was speedily 
arrested by the eternal icy barrier. Barents then coasted 
along the western side of Spitzbergen; and the north- 
western headland being frequented by an immense number 
of birds, he called it Vogelsang. 
*'T, Nelson & Sons, London, Edinburgh, and New York. 
