New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1923-10-30
ARCTIC land Helps
WORLD keep warm
Coal Mined in Spitzbereen, 600
Miles North Of Alaska

Washington, d. c.. Oct. 3o.-spitz
bergen, where favorable weather dur
ing the past summer permitted the
making of important surveys never
before possible. has Unique interest
because It Is one Of the few Arctic OF
Antarctic lands that are being made ia
yield up minerals to the temperate
zones, according to bulletin from
the Washington, D. c., headquarters
of the National Geographic Society.
THE northern tip of Alaska to
which a few government officials push
each summer may seem all too close
to the North Pole for the average
dweller OF the warmer regions of the
earth to live in unless he is pursuing
scientific Investigations" says the
bulletin. I'm Spitzbergen, how
ever, which is 900 miles closed to the
top of the world, several hundred
ordinary men of Europe and America
are making their homes the year
round while they strip coal from be-
meath the ice-covered mountains. 1t
is excellent COAL too, and there is
every reason to believe that the min
ing operations will grow steadily.
Formerly Was "No-Man's Land'
1.-THE discovery early in the twen-
tieth century, that Spitzbergen's. coal
underlies large areas brought it sud
denly back to the worlds attention
and made sovereignty over 1t well
worth claiming after 1t had been
abandoned for generations as sort
of no-man's land. Barents q Dutch
man, discovered Spitzbergen In 1896,
according to the usual records; but
the Norwegians claim that their sea-
men visited the islands at earlier
dates. Henry Hudson, searching for
a northern passage to the Orient in
1907, learned of the vast number of
whales near the islands and as re-
suit Spitzbergen's waters became for
time the worlds greatest whale
fishery.
THE Dutch were foremost in this
development. By the time of Amer
ica's Revolutionary War whalers from
the Netherlands had taken about
500, 100000 worth of whale products
from the region. Catches became SO
great in the early years Of the ex-
An Arctic Summer Town."
barrassed to haul the blubber home.
An Attic Summer Town"
"a thriving summer town., Smeer-
enberg, was established and flourished
for score of years. It was an anom-
alous community, Dutch town in the
frozen Arctic, with its shops, drink
ing places, and bakeries In addition to
the oil refineries, cooperage establish
ments and smithies of the whaling in
dustry. When the whales in the i'm
mediate neighborhood of the islands
were destroyed and the whalers had
to go farther afield for their catches,
Smeerenberg, dwindled away. About
Dutch community is the GEM
etery of a thousand or more graves in
the cherries, frozen earth.
In 1920, a treaty was signed by
most of the leading European nations
and the United States recognized the
sovereignty of Norway over Spitz-
bergen. The islands have an area
roughly of $4,000 square miles, about
that of West Virginia. Its lofty
needle-like peaks are mantled almost
from top to bottom in perpetual snow
and between are huge glaciers. One
great ice-river, the Queen Maud (
Glacier, is fifty miles wide.
THE ill-starred expedition of the
swedish explorer, Andree, who hoped
o reach the North Pole by balloon,
ook to the air from Spitzbergen in
1897. The fate of the members of the
expedition was never learned. A few
nessag -buoys dropped the day of
he start were found near Spitzber-
ZEN. No later word was received"