The west Coast of Spitzbergen.—Ascension of a Mountain by Dr. Scoresby.—His Excursion along the Coast.—A stranded Whale.—Magdalena Bay.—Multitudes of Sea-birds.—Animal Life.—Midnight Silence.—Glaciers.—A dangerous Neighborhood.—Interior Plateau.—Flora of Spitzbergen.—Its Similarity with that of the Alps above the Snow-line.—Reindeer.—The hyperborean Ptarmigan.—Fishes.—Coal.—Drift-wood.—Discovery of Spitzbergen by Barentz, Heemskerk, and Ryp.—Brilliant Period of the Whale-fishery.—Coffins.—Eight English Sailors winter in Spitzbergen, 1630.—Melancholy Death of some Dutch Volunteers.—Russian Hunters.—Their Mode of wintering in Spitzbergen.—Scharostin.—Walrus-ships from Hammerfest and Tromsö.—Bear or Cherie Island.—Bennet.—Enormous Slaughter of Walruses.—Mildness of its Climate.—Mount Misery.—Adventurous Boat-voyage of some Norwegian Sailors.—Jan Meyen.—Beerenberg.
The archipelago of Spitzbergen consists of five large islands: West Spitzbergen, North-east Land, Stans Foreland, Barentz Land, Prince Charles Foreland; and of a vast number of smaller ones, scattered around their coasts. Its surface is about equal to that of two-thirds of Scotland; its most southern point (76° 30´ N. lat.) lies nearer to the Pole than Melville Island; and Ross Islet, at its northern extremity (80° 49´ N. lat.), looks out upon the unknown ocean, which perhaps extends without interruption as far as the Straits of Bering.
Of all the Arctic countries that have hitherto been discovered, Grinnell132 Land and Washington alone lie nearer to the Pole; but while these ice-blocked regions can only be reached with the utmost difficulty, the western and north-western coasts of Spitzbergen, exposed to the mild south-westerly winds, and to the influence of the Gulf Stream, are frequently visited, not only by walrus-hunters and Arctic explorers, but by amateur travellers and sportsmen.
The eastern coasts are far less accessible, and in parts have never yet been accurately explored. As far as they are known, they are not so bold and indented as the western and north-western coasts, which, projecting in mighty capes or opening a passage to deep fjords, have been gnawed into every variety of fantastic form by the corroding power of an eternal winter, and justify, by their endless succession of jagged spikes and break-neck acclivities, the name of Spitzbergen, which its first Dutch discoverers gave to this land of “serrated peaks.”
The mountains on the west coast are very steep, many of them inaccessible, and most of them dangerous to climb, either from the smooth hard snow with which they are encrusted even in summer, or from the looseness of the disintegrated stones which cover the parts denuded by the sun, and give way under the slightest pressure of the foot.
More than one daring seaman has paid dearly for his temerity in venturing to scale these treacherous heights. The supercargo, or owner, of the very first Dutch whaler that visited Spitzbergen (1612) broke his neck in attempting to climb a steep mountain in Prince Charles Foreland, and Barentz very nearly lost several of his men under similar circumstances. Dr. Scoresby, who in the course of his whaling expeditions touched at Spitzbergen no less than seventeen times, was more successful in scaling a mountain 3000 feet high, near Mitre Cape, though the approach to the summit was by a ridge so narrow that he could only advance by sitting astride upon its edge. But the panorama which he beheld, after having attained his object, amply repaid him for the danger and fatigue of clambering for several hours over loose stones, which at every step rolled with fearful rapidity into the abyss beneath.
“The prospect,” says the distinguished naturalist, “was most extensive and grand. A fine sheltered bay was seen to the east of us; an arm of the same on the north-east; and the sea, whose glassy surface was unruffled by a breeze, formed an immense expanse on the west; the icebergs, rearing their proud crests almost to the tops of the mountains between which they were lodged, and defying the power of the solar beams, were scattered in various directions about the sea-coast and in the adjoining bays. Beds of snow and ice, filling extensive hollows and giving an enamelled coat to adjoining valleys, one of which, commencing at the foot of the mountain where we stood, extended in a continued line towards the north as far as the eye could reach; mountain rising above mountain, until by distance they dwindled into insignificance; the whole contrasted by a cloudless canopy of deepest azure, and enlightened by the rays of a blazing sun, and the effect aided by a feeling of danger—seated, as we were, on the pinnacle of a rock, almost surrounded by tremendous precipices; all united to constitute a picture singularly sublime.
“Our descent we found really a very hazardous, and in some instances a133 painful undertaking. Every movement was a work of deliberation. Having, by much care and with some anxiety, made good our descent to the top of the secondary hills, we took our way down one of the steepest banks, and slid forward with great facility in a sitting posture. Towards the foot of the hill an expanse of snow stretched across the line of descent. This being loose and soft, we entered upon it without fear, but on reaching the middle of it, we came to a surface of solid ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which we launched with astonishing velocity, but happily escaped without injury. The men, whom we left below, viewed this latter movement with astonishment and fear.”
After this perilous descent, Scoresby continued his excursion on the flat land next the sea, where he found scattered here and there many skulls and other bones of sea-horses, whales, narwhals, foxes, and seals. Two Russian lodges, formed of logs of pine, with a third in ruins, were also seen; the former, from a quantity of fresh chips about them and other appearances, gave evidence of having been recently inhabited. These huts were built upon a ridge of shingle adjoining the sea. Among the boulders heaped upon the shore, numerous sea-birds had built their nests or laid their eggs, which they defended with loud cries and determined courage against the attacks of gulls. The only insect he perceived was a small green fly, but the water along the coast was filled with medusæ and shrimps. The strong north-west winds had covered the strand with large heaps of Fucus vesiculosus and Laminaria saccharina, the same which the storms also cast out upon our shores.
The view of this high northern life was extremely interesting, but Dr. Scoresby was still further rewarded by the discovery of a dead whale, found stranded on the beach, which, though much swollen and not a little putrid, proved a prize worth at least £400. By a harpoon found in its body, it appeared to have been struck by some of the fishers on the Elbe, and having escaped from them, it had probably stranded itself on the spot where it was found. When the first incision was made, the oil gushed forth like a fountain. It was a slow and laborious work to transport the blubber to the ship, which on account of the dangerous nature of the coast was obliged to remain two miles off at sea. After five boat-loads had safely been brought on board, the wind suddenly changed, so that the ship was driven far out to sea, and the boat reached her with great difficulty.
Of the numerous fjords of Spitzbergen, once the busy resort of whole fleets of whalers, and now but rarely visited by man, none has been more accurately described by modern Arctic voyagers than the magnificent harbor of Magdalena Bay. Here the Dorothea and the Trent anchored in 1818, on their way to the North Pole; here also the French naturalists, who had been sent out in the corvette La Recherche (1835–36) to explore the high northern latitudes, sojourned for several weeks.
The number of the sea-birds is truly astonishing. On the ledges of a high rock at the head of the bay Beechey saw the little auks (Arctica alle) extend in an uninterrupted line full three miles in length, and so closely congregated that about thirty fell at a single shot. He estimated their numbers at about134 4,000,000. When they took flight they darkened the air; and at the distance of four miles their chorus could distinctly be heard.
71. MAGDALENA BAY, SPITZBERGEN.
On a fine summer’s day, the bellowing of the walruses and the hoarse bark of the seals are mingled with the shrill notes of the auks, divers, and gulls. Although all these tones produce a by no means harmonious concert, yet they have a pleasing effect, as denoting the happy feelings of so many creatures.135 When the sun verges to the pole, every animal becomes mute, and a silence broken only by the bursting of a glacier reigns over the whole bay—a remarkable contrast to the tropical regions, where Nature enjoys her repose during the noonday heat, and it is only after sunset that life awakens in the forest and the field.
Four glaciers reach down this noble inlet: one, called the Wagon Way, is 7000 feet across at its terminal cliff, which is 300 feet high, presenting a magnificent wall of ice. But the whole scene is constructed on so colossal a scale that it is only on a near approach that the glaciers of Magdalena Bay appear in all their imposing grandeur. In clear weather the joint effect of the ice under the water, and the reflection of the glacier-wall above, causes a remarkable optical delusion. The water assumes a milk-white color, the seals appear to gambol in a thick cream-like liquid, and the error only becomes apparent when, on leaning over the side of the boat, the spectator looks down into the transparent depth below.
It is extremely dangerous to approach these cliffs of ice, as every now and then large blocks detach themselves from the mass, and frequently even a concussion of the air is enough to make them fall.
During the busy period of Spitzbergen history, when its bay used to be frequented by whalers who anchored under the glacier-walls, these ice-avalanches often had disastrous consequences. Thus, in the year 1619, an English ship was driven by a storm into Bell Sound. While it was passing under a precipice of ice, a prodigious mass came thundering down upon it, broke the masts, and threw the ship so violently upon one side that the captain and part of the crew were swept into the sea. The captain escaped unhurt, but two sailors were killed and several others wounded.
One day a gun was fired from a boat of the Trent when about half a mile from one of the glaciers of Magdalena Bay. Immediately after the report of the musket, a noise resembling thunder was heard in the direction of the ice-stream, and in a few seconds more an enormous mass detached itself from its front, and fell into the sea. The men in the boat, supposing themselves to be beyond the reach of its influence, were tranquilly contemplating the magnificent sight, when suddenly a large wave came sweeping over the bay, and cast their little shallop to a distance of ninety-six feet upon the beach.
Another time, when Franklin and Beechey had approached one of these ice-walls, a huge fragment suddenly slid from its side, and fell with a crash into the sea. At first the detached mass entirely disappeared under the waters, casting up clouds of spray, but soon after it shot up again at least 100 feet above the surface, and then kept rocking several minutes to and fro. When at length the tumult subsided, the block was found to measure no less than 1500 feet in circumference; it projected 60 feet above the water, and its weight was calculated at more than 400,000 tons.
Besides the glaciers of Magdalena Bay, Spitzbergen has many others that protrude their crystal walls down to the water’s edge; and yet but few icebergs, and the largest not to be compared with the productions of Baffin’s Bay, are drifted from the shores of Spitzbergen into the open sea. The reason is136 that the glaciers usually terminate where the sea is shallow, so that no very large mass if dislodged can float away, and they are at the same time so frequently dismembered by heavy swells that they can not attain any great size.
The interior of Spitzbergen has never been explored. According to the Swedish naturalists,8 who climbed many of the highest mountains in various parts of the coast, all the central regions of the archipelago form a level ice-plateau, interrupted only here and there by denuded rocks, projecting like islands from the crystal sea in which they are imbedded. The height of this plateau above the level of the ocean is in general from 1500 to 2000 feet, and from its frozen solitudes descend the various glaciers above described. During the summer months, the radiation of the sun at Spitzbergen is always very intense, the thermometer in some sheltered situations not seldom rising at noon to 62°, 67°, or even 73°. Even at midnight, at the very peak of the high mountain ascended by Scoresby, the power of the sun produced a temperature several degrees above the freezing-point, and occasioned the discharge of streams of water from the snow-capped summit. Hence, though even in the three warmest months the temperature of Spitzbergen does not average more that 34½°, yet in the more southern aspects, and particularly where the warmth of the sun is absorbed and radiated by black rock-walls, the mountains are not seldom bared at an elevation nearly equal to that of the snow-line of Norway, and various Alpine plants and grasses frequently flourish, not only in sheltered situations at the foot of the hills, but even to a considerable height, wherever the disintegrated rocks lodge and form a tolerably good soil.
The Flora of Spitzbergen consists of about ninety-three species of flowering or phenogamous plants, which generally grow in isolated tufts or patches; but the mosses which carpet the moist lowlands, and the still more hardy lichens, which invest the rocks with their thin crusts or scurfs as far as the last limits of vegetation, are much more numerous. Some of the plants of Spitzbergen are also found on the Alps beyond the snow-line, at elevations of from 9000 to 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. According to Mr. Martins, nothing can give a better idea of Spitzbergen than the vast circus of névé, in the centre of which rises the triangular rock known to the visitors of Chamonny as the Jardin or the Courtil. Let the tourist, placed on this spot at a time when the sun rises but little above the horizon, or better still, when wreaths of mist hang over the neighboring mountains, fancy the sea bathing the foot of the amphitheatre of which he occupies the centre, and he has a complete Spitzbergen prospect before him. Supposing him to be a botanist, the sight of the Ranunculus glacialis, Cerastium alpinum, Arenaria biflora, and Erigeron uniflorus will still further increase the illusion.
The only esculent plant of Spitzbergen is the Cochlearia fenestrata, which here loses its acrid principles, and can be eaten as a salad. The grasses which137 Keilhau found growing near some Russian huts in Stans Foreland are during the summer a precious resource for the reindeer, which, though extremely shy, make their appearance from time to time in every part of the land from the Seven Islands to South Cape, and are more abundant than could have been expected. The Polar bears are probably their only native enemies on these islands, and their fleetness furnishes them with ample means of escape from a pursuer so clumsy on land. Lord Mulgrave’s crew killed fifty deer on Vogelsang, a noted hunting-place, and on Sir Edward Parry’s polar expedition about seventy deer were shot in Treurenberg Bay by inexperienced deer-stalkers, and without the aid of dogs. During the winter these large herbivora live on the Icelandic moss which they scent under the snow, but it may well be asked where they find shelter in a naked wilderness without a single tree. In May and June they are so thin as scarcely to be eatable, but in July they begin to get fat, and then their flesh would everywhere be reckoned a delicacy.
Besides the reindeer, the only land-quadrupeds of Spitzbergen are the Polar bear, the Arctic fox, and a small field-mouse, which in summer has a mottled, and in winter a white fur.
Of the birds, the hyperborean ptarmigan (Lagopus hyperborea), which easily procures its food under the snow, undoubtedly winters in Spitzbergen, and probably also the lesser red-pole, which perhaps finds grass seeds enough for its subsistence during the long polar nights, while the snow-bunting (Plectrophanes nivalis), and the twenty species of water-fowl and waders that frequent the shores of the high northern archipelago during the summer, all migrate southward when the long summer’s day verges to its end.
Until very lately the Spitzbergen waters were supposed to be poor in fishes, though the numerous finbacks, which towards the end of summer frequent the southern and south-western coasts, and, unlike the large smooth-back whales, chiefly live on herrings, as well as the troops of salmon-loving white dolphin seen about the estuaries of the rivers, sufficiently proved the contrary, not to mention the herds of seals, and the hosts of ichthyophagous sea-birds that breed on every rocky ledge of the archipelago. Phipps and Scoresby mention only three or four species of fishes occurring in the seas of Spitzbergen, while the Swedish naturalist Malmgren, the first who seems to have paid real attention to this interesting branch of zoology, collected no less than twenty-three species in 1861 and 1864. The northern shark (Scymnus microcephalus) is so abundant that of late its fishery has proved highly remunerative. The first ship which was fitted out for this purpose in 1863 by Hilbert Pettersen, of Tromsö, returned from Bell and Ice Sounds with a full cargo of sharks’ livers, and in 1865 the same enterprising merchant sent out no less than five shark-ships to Spitzbergen. The cod, the common herring, the shell-fish, the halibut have likewise been caught in the waters of the archipelago, and there is every reason to believe that their fishery, which has hitherto been entirely neglected, might be pursued with great success.
The mineral riches of Spitzbergen are, of course, but little known. Coal of an excellent quality, which might easily be worked, as it nearly crops out on the surface at a short distance from the sea, has, however, been discovered138 lately by Mr. Blomstrand in King’s Bay, and similar strata exist in various parts of Bell Sound and Ice Sound. Large quantities of drift-wood, probably from the large Siberian rivers, are deposited by the currents, particularly on the north coasts of North-east Land, and on the southern coasts of Stans Foreland. In English Bay Lord Dufferin saw innumerable logs of unhewn timber, mingled with which lay pieces of broken spars, an oar, a boat’s flagstaff, and a few shattered fragments of some long-lost vessel’s planking.
Most probably the Norwegians had their attention directed at a very early period to the existence of a land lying to the north of Finmarken by the troops of migratory birds which they saw flying northward in spring, and by the casual visits of sea-bears, which the drift-ice carried to the south. There can be no doubt that they were the first discoverers of Spitzbergen, but their history contains no positive records of the fact, and it was not before the sixteenth century t............