The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

170 THE EUROPEAN ISLANDS OF THE AECTIC OCEAN.IL—SPITZBEKGEN.The Spitzbergen archipelago consists of five largo and numerous small islands,stretching north and south across 4° of latitude, the northernmost rocksbeing scarcely more than 650 miles from the pole. From the careful observationstaken at many points by Scoresby, Brook, Franklin, Beechey, Parry,and Nordenskjold, the geographer Debes estimated the area of the group at22,720 square miles. But the expedition of Leigh Smith and Ulve in 1871 gavea further extension of at least 2,800 square miles to North-East Land, and thewhole area is now raised to 25,580 square miles.When this archipelago was discovered by Barents in 1596, Greenland wassupposed to extend much farther east. Some even thought that it reached theAsiatic continent, and it is referred to in various legends as a Trollboten, or " Landof Enchanters," occupying all the north of the globe. Although Cornelis Rijp,one of Barents' companions, had circumnavigated the group, a feat renewed for thefirst time by the Norwegian Captain Carlsen, that important excursion had beencompletely forgotten, and these islands long continued to be variously treated asparts of Greenland on the charts.They were also occasionally known as Nieuland,or Newland, like so many other recently discovered islands ; but the name ofSpitzbergen, dating from the time of the first discovery, ultimately prevailed.The general nomenclature, however, still remains in a chaotic state, English, Dutch,Swedish, and other names contending for the supremacy, so that certain gulfs andheadlands have as many as ten different names. On the west coast nearly all thereceived geographical terms are of English or Dutch origin ; but in the north, onthe shores of Hinlopen Strait and of North-East Land, great confusion is caused bythe different names imposed on the same places by English, Swedish, German, andother explorers.Spitzbergen has no very lofty summits, the highest hitherto measured beingHorn Sound Peak (4,550 feet), near the southern extremity of the great island.But crests 5,000 feet high are said to occur in Prince Charles Foreland, runningparallel with the west coast of West Land. Elsewhere there are no eminences muchabove 3,000 feet, and the highest yet ascended is the White Mountain (2,950 feet),on the east side of the great island, whence Nordenskjold obtained a fine prospectin 1865.The interior of the island presents almost everywhere the appearance ofrolling plains, here and there commanded by steep rocks, whose dark sides contrastforcibly with the surrounding snows. The mean elevation of the snow-fields inWest Spitzbergen is about 1,800 feet, and of those in North-East Land 2,000 feet.Although the interior of the archipelago is little known, the vast accumulationsof detritus at the extremities of the glaciers show that the geological formation isvery uniform, consisting mainly of gneiss, granites, and palaeozoic sedimentaryrocks. The Seven Islands, a small elevated group north of North-East Land,consist entirely of gneiss, and all the northern parts are of old formation ; butfarther south the whole series of secondary rocks, especially the triassic and