34-2 MM. C. Borgen and 11. CopelancPs Short Account of the 



Successful winterings are, however, to be noted even among 

 these, and indeed one in which this was hardly to be expected. 

 In the year 1630, eight sailors belonging to an English whaler 

 were separated from the ship and compelled to pass the winter 

 on Spitzbergen under 77° N. lat. Of course they had no pro- 

 visions from the ship, and we might therefore have anticipated 

 that they would not live through the winter. But this very cir- 

 cumstance was their salvation ; for in order to obtain nourish- 

 ment they were obliged to go hunting, and were fortunate 

 enough to kill a sufficient number of reindeers and bears to fur- 

 nish them with fresh meat and warm clothing. The fresh meat, 

 in conjunction with much moving about in the open air (the two 

 conditions of health in this climate), kept them strong and 

 healthy, and thus they were found and brought home in May of 

 the following year by their former ship, without any of them 

 having been seriously ill during the winter. 



But unfortunately such a successful wintering as this was at 

 that time an exception ; and it is therefore no wonder that rlfty 

 years ago the opinion was still entertained that it was impossible 

 for Europeans to pass the winter safely in the arctic regions. In 

 the present day we may certainly say that at that time, and 

 with the equipment in provisions and clothing then supplied, a 

 wintering was attended with great danger to life ; but that it 

 is now no longer perilous has been sufficiently proved by the 

 recent voyages. 



For more than two centuries the idea of a "north-west pas- 

 sage," north of America from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, 

 as a commercial route to the East Indies and China, produced a 

 series of English expeditions which led to the exploration of 

 Hudson's and Baffin's Bays, to the discovery of Lancaster, 

 Smith's, and Jones's Sounds, &c. But they showed at the 

 same time that, if a north-west passage really existed, it was not 

 fitted for commercial purposes. Hence, after Cook, in his last 

 voyage in 1779, had made an attempt to penetrate through 

 Behring's Straits, these voyages, which were commercially 

 useless, were given up, and people contented themselves with 

 working the rich fisheries found on the previous voyages of 

 discovery. 



For nearly forty years voyages of discovery towards the north 

 ceased, until in 1815 Kotzebue made a fresh attempt to force 

 the north-west passage from Behring's Straits. lie got no 

 further, however, than to the sound which is named after him. 

 Now also a series of attempts was again made on the part of the 

 English, to discover the north-west passage. But the object was 

 now no longer to find a commercial route to China, but rather 



