Gilpin observer., 1901-11-14

Excluding Australia, Baffin Land sit
uated near the east coast of the Ameri-
can continent, short distance north Of
Hudson strait, is the second island Of
the world in point of size, and still lit
tie is known about it, 1t has long been
represented on the maps as composed
of number Of islands. 1t is still
shown in this way on a number Of
maps now in use. One by one these
supposed islands, Cumberland island,
Fox Land, Meta Incognita, Sussex
island and others have been found to be
a part of the main island; thus Baffin
Land has been gradually increasing in
size on the maps until to-day it is
known to be inferior only to Greenland
in size. The latest edition of the best
map of the polar regions published in
any American atlas, however, still
shows Cockburn island, which is about
as large as Iceland, as separated from
Baffin Land by wide channel, though
a number of foreign maps show that
it is part of Batfin Land.
DR.. Robert Bell, the new director of
the geological survey of Canada, who
mapped long stretch of the west
coast in 1897, has just published in the
Geographical Journal Il report Of his
explorations. He says that it is the
third largest island in the world, being
only exceeded by Australia and Green
land" AS Australia is now ranked by
nearly all geographers as the smallest
of the continents, Baffin Land will un-
doubtedly take its place among the
islands as the second in area.
All the best maps of Baffin Land now
show great lake region in the central
part Of the southern portion of the
s~1H InI- I;- l.
tain ranges. DR.. Bell says that the two
greatest bodies of water are larger
than any of the lakes in the whole
peninsula of Labrador, and that they
may almost be compared to Lake On
tario in extent. He visited the south
ernmost, Lake Amadjuak, which may
be 12O miles in length by forty in
breadth in the middle. According to
Eskimo accounts, Lake Amadjuak dis
charges northward into Lake Mettil-
ling by a short river, without rapids,
the natives passing from one lake to
another in their kyaks. Lake Mettil-
ling is perhaps 14O miles long and sixty
miles wide, and its waters reach the
sea through a large and rapid river,
fifty or sixty miles long, that has de-
scent of about five feet to the mile.
The conspicuous honor of being the
largest island in the world has been
held by quite n number of islands at
various stages of geographical knowl-
edge, School children We're taught for
many years that Australia was the
largest Island. Then Australia came
properly to be regarded as one of the
continental masses and Borneo took it's
place as the largest island.
Less than twenty years ago it, was
discovered that New Guinea was larger
than Borneo, and so the latter island
took second place. When Peary prac-
tically outlined the northern coast of
Greenland, early in the last decade,
geographers began to think that they
had overlooked an important section of
the earth's surface, and so they placed
Greenland at the head of the list of
islands. At last Baffin Land looms up
as an island 1,O05 statute miles in
length, with n breadth varying from
2CO to 500 miles, the average being 3O5
miles. Its area is therefore about 30O,-
600 square miles. In other words. the
island is larger than the sta,c of Texas
by about 10000 square miles, or about
ten times as large as either Scotland or
Ireland. Though it takes its place as
second in the list of islands. Baffin
Land appears to be of no great value,
since it is composed, as far as we
know, of barren rocks, partly covered
with ice.
The twelve largest islands in the
world in order of size, are: Greenland,
Baffin Land, New Guinea. Borneo,
Madagascar, Sumatra, Nippon (the
largest island of Japan, Great Britain,
Celebes, New Zealand (South island,
Java and Cuba.