SAILING THE SEVEN SEAS 



639 



Photograph from A. B. W 



CUTTING A HUGE WHA^ AT A SHORE STATION IN THE FAR NORTH 



The cutters, or "flensers," make longitudinal incisions in the blubber of the whale, and then 

 peel it off like the skin from an orange. When the "blanket pieces," as the blubber strips are 

 called, have been torn from the carcass, they are cut into blocks, dumped into enormous vats, 

 and boiled, or "tried out," for oil. 



aft sails set, we were able to make slow 

 headway south, while tacking back and 

 forth 12 times off the coast of Spits- 

 bergen. We had occasional glimpses of 

 Queen Maud Glacier, 50 miles in width, 

 of Magdalena Bay, with its imprisoned 

 icebergs, and of Prince Charles Fore- 

 land, as from time to time we would 

 emerge from the fog and cloud of the 

 storm into the clear skies along the coast 

 during our struggle out of the grip of the 

 Arctic. 



During the first 24 hours of the storm 

 we were able to make only 30 miles to the 

 southward, but each- mile gained meant 

 that much additional safety. The gale 

 finally surrendered and, the wind shifting 

 to the westward, we proceeded toward 

 Iceland, sighting Jan Mayen on the way, 

 glad to be safely out of that dangerous 

 region. 



At Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, 

 the pilot met us with our first news of the 



war — all Europe in a turmoil and the 

 Germans within a few miles of Paris ! 



Our amazement can readily be imag- 

 ined, and our interest in Iceland, with its 

 huge glaciers, its immense lava fields, and 

 its peculiar climatic conditions, became 

 secondary to our interest in the daily 

 cabled news from Europe. 



ICELAND, THE IvAND OE THE SAGAS, THE 

 OLDEST LITERATURE OF EUROPE 



The southern shores of the island are 

 bathed by the warm waters of a branch 

 of the North Atlantic Drift, and the 

 northern shores are infested with ice- 

 bergs borne on the cold waters of the 

 Greenland Current. A meeting of these 

 two extreme conditions creates continu- 

 ous atmospheric disturbances. Wind and 

 rain, storms and gales, were almost in- 

 cessant during our stay. 



The harbor of Reykjavik is noted for 

 unusual local magnetic disturbances, and 



