For two centuries the whalers and sealers—Swedes, Danes, Dutch, Norwegians—frequented these islands in summer months. The right whale disappeared. The seals became fewer. Visits to the islands became less frequent. Now coal has been discovered in such beds as to justify civilization in taking cognizance of “No Man’s Land.”
The United States accepted the invitation of Norway to take part in an international conference, at Christiana, to consider the government of Spitzbergen. Russia, Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and Denmark were invited. There is not much doubt that a form of government will be devised and a full agreement reached.
This is a significant movement toward extending law in some form to every bit of territory on the earth’s surface. A century hence it will perhaps be impossible to find a square foot of earth that can be called “No Man’s Land.”—Brooklyn Eagle.
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Nobility, Obscure—See [Spiritual Nobility].
Noise, Vain—See [Pretense].
Nomenclature, Absurd—See [Absurdity in Nomenclature].
Non-Christian Religions—See [Inadequacy of Non-Christian Religions].
NORMAL, THE, ARE THE HIGHEST
In the valley the sequoia is twenty feet in diameter, and this is natural. Now, climb the sides of the mountain, and the diameter drops to ten feet, to five feet, to two feet six inches, and finally you get an army of average six-inch sequoias. But don’t say now that because the average on this rocky soil and these storm-swept peaks is six inches, that the great tree in the valley is abnormal. On the mountain side, with the thin soil, roots that cling to rocks, snows that bite, winds breaking the boughs, thunderbolts that burn and blacken, the average tree is small.