SPITZBERGEN—FISHING FLEET IN GREEN BAY.—From a Sketch by W. H. King, U. S. N.
SPITZBERGEN.
BY BARNET PHILLIPS.
The Norsemen were once the most famous of all sailors, and in the olden times they just laughed at the dangers of the sea. Not very long ago, by great good luck, there was found on the coast of Norway a small vessel which was hundreds and hundreds of years old, and by looking at the way it was built by the shipwrights of that time we learn that they were first-class mechanics, and knew all about clinker-built vessels.
Away off in the cold seas of the Arctic Ocean, about half way between the coasts of Norway and Greenland, there is a small archipelago, the best-known island of which is called Spitzbergen. Now the very name of this dreary spot suggests a chill and a shiver, for people say, when the fire in the house is out in winter, "It is as cold as Spitzbergen."
When the Norsemen first found this island nobody knows exactly; but it is highly probable that when they went over to Iceland, some seven hundred or eight hundred years ago, they came across it in their track. What is very certain, however, is that Barentz, one of the bravest and kindest of the old Dutch sailors and explorers, landed there in 1596; and what is quite as interesting is the fact that Henry Hudson went to Spitzbergen in 1607.
The island, though it abounds in the grandest scenery, is one of the coldest places on earth during the winter. Great mountains extend along the coast, divided by huge glaciers. Nobody has ever yet tried to travel into the interior, but it is known that there is a plateau or plain there some two thousand feet in height.