The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume XII, No. 2 [‎278v] (59/154)

150 AN EXPLORATION IN 1897 OF SOME OF THE GLACIERS OF SPITSBERGEN..
is a Ioav undulating region, from which the ice-sheet has retreated in
relatively recent times.
South of North-East Land are two islands, now generally known as-
Swedish Foreland and King Carl island. These were the “ high land,”
discovered by Giles and Keps in 1707, when they circumnavigated
North-East Land, and returned northward by way of Hinloopen strait.*
It has generally been supposed that the Wiche Land of Captain Edge
was the same pair of islands, but I think that this was not the case.
In the years 1616 and 1617 explorations were made to the eastward of
Spitsbergen on behalf of the Muscovy Company. Their results are
only recorded on Thomas Edge’s map, printed in Furchas, and again in
Pellham’s ‘ God’s Power and Providence,’ etc. (of 1631). Edge states
(in Purchas) that, in 1617, a ship of sixty tons, with a crew of twenty
men, “discovered to the eastward of Greenland = Spitsbergen as farre
to the northwards as 79 degrees, and an iland which he named Wiches
iland,f and divers other ilands.” From the map, it is clear that both
coasts of \\ybe Jans water, right up to its northern extremity,! were
explored, as well as the north-east coast of Edge Island ; but that the
eastern extremity of the latter was not reached, still less turned. In fact,
the exploration did not extend to any part of the sea east of Edge island.
A landing was certainly made on Barents island, for reindeer are marked
on it. Doubtless some high point was climbed there on a clear day, and
the southern mouth of Hinloopen strait was seen and the extremity of
North-East Land, which is marked on the map, “ Sir Thomas Smyths
Iland. From the same point, no doubt, Swedish Foreland might have
been seen, but, if it had been, it could not possibly have been marked
as a jong north and south coast-line lying between about lat. 76°
and tS , but must have been placed in or above lat. 79°. The
lCc7<es Lande of Edge’s map, therefore, was not seen from a hill on
Barents island ; nor was it seen from the sea east of Edge island. But,
if seen at all, it must have been seen from some point of land or sea
depicted on that map. It was not seen from a hill on Barents island;
neither was it seen from the sea east of Edge island, and a fortiori not
rom the sea east of Barents island. Hence it cannot be the same as King
Carl s is and and Swedish Foreland. In fact, it corresponds to no exist-
mg land at all, and doubtless merely represents some bank of fog or
other deceptive atmospheric phenomenon.
I have never landed in Barents or Edge islands, though I have seen
both from east and from west. Neither possesses an ice-sheet. Both
gegeve^door ^ ^ ^
gegeven door Gerard van Keulen Boek en m hgt » ebra S ht en ^
met PrevHegie voor 15 Jaaren ” aaQ de NieuWen bru S
t After Richard Wiche, a governor of the Moscovy Company
+ Which is in 78° 40 , but is marked by Edge as extending U
to about 7!>° 15'.