144 



THE POLAR WORLD 



net, a shipmaster in the service of the Muscovy Company, while on a voyage of 

 discovery in a north-easterly direction, likewise saw Bear Island on August 16. 

 Ignorant of its previous discovery by Barentz, he called it Cherie Island, after 

 Sir Francis Cherie, a member of the company, and to this day both names are 

 used. 



Bennet found some walruses on its desert shores, and returned in the fol- 

 lowing year with a vessel fitted out by a merchant of the name of Welden, to wage 

 war with these sea-monsters. His first operations were not very successful. 

 Of a herd of at least a thousand walruses, he killed no more than fifteen, and a 

 later attack upon an equally enormous troop raised the entire number of his 

 victims to no more than fifty. Their tusks alone were brought away, and along 

 with some loose ones collected on the beach formed the chief produce of the ex- 

 pedition. At first the unwieldy creatures were fired at, but as the bullets made 

 no great impression on their thick hides, grapeshot was now discharged into 

 their eyes, and the blinded animals were finally killed with axes. 



In the following year Welden himself proceeded to Bear Island, and the art 

 of walrus-killing gradually improving by practice, this second expedition 

 proved far more profitable than the first. Care had also been taken to provide 

 large kettles and the necessary fuel to boil their fat on the spot, so that besides 

 the tusks a quantity of oil was gained. In 1606 Bennet again appeared on the 

 field of action, and the dexterity of the walrus-hunters had now become so great 

 that in less than six hours they killed more than 700, which yielded twenty-two 

 tons of oil. During the following voyage, Welden, who seems to have acted in 

 partnership with Bennet, each taking his tarn, killed no less than 1000 walruses 

 in seven hours. Thus Bear Island proved a mine of wealth to these enterpris- 

 ing men, and though the walruses are not now so abundant as in the good old 

 times, yet they are still sufficiently numerous to attract the attention of specula- 

 tors. Every year several expeditions proceed to its shores from the Russian 

 and Norwegian ports, and generally some men pass the winter in huts erected 

 on its northern and south-eastern coasts. 



Considering its high northern latitude of 15°, the climate of Bear Island is un- 

 commonly mild. According to the reports of some Norwegian walrus-hunters, 

 who remained there from 1824 to 1826, the cold was so moderate during the 

 first winter that, until the middle of November, the snow which fell in the night 

 melted during the daytime. It rained at Christmas, and seventy walruses were 

 killed during Christmas week by the light of the moon and that of the Aurora. 

 Even in February the weather was so mild that the men were able to work in 

 the open air under the same latitude as Melville Island, where mercury is a solid 

 body during five months of the year. The cold did not become intense be- 

 fore March, and attained its maximum in April, when the sea froze fast round 

 the island, and the white bears appeared which had been absent during the 

 whole winter. The second winter was more severe than the first, but even then 

 the sea remained open until the middle of November— evidently in consequence 

 of the prevailing south-westerly winds. The greater part of Bear Island is a 

 desolate plateau raised about 100 or 200 feet above the sea. Along its western 

 shores rises a group of three mountains, supposed to be about 200 feet higb^ 



