The Threshold of the Unknown Region Author:Clements R. Markham Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. WILLIAM BABENTS. The Dutch bad not only watched the English pioneers of Arctic discovery very attentively: their merchants had themselves opene... more »d a trade with Kola and Archangel as early as 1578. But the obstacles to any progress eastward, caused by the heavy ice in the sea of Kara, turned the attention of Dutch navigators to the possibility of a passage round the northern end of Xovaya Zemlya, and thus the first true Polar voyage was projected. The credit of its conception is due to the great cosmographer Peter Plancins, who recommended this route to the merchants of Amsterdam. In 1594 the Amsterdammers fitted out a vessel of about 100 tons, called the ' Mercurins,' and they were most fortunate in their choice of a commander. William Barents was a native of the island of Terschilling, near the Texel, a man of some education, a most accurate observer, and a bold and enterprising seaman. As some of our most valuable information respecting the Polar ice between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya is 10 FIRST VOYAGE OB1 BARENTS. derived from the labours of Barents, it is certainly most fortunate that perfect reliance can be placed on the observations of this able leader of the first true Polar voyage. On June 4, 1594, Barents sailed from the Texel in the 'Mercurins,' with a little fishing-smack , belonging to his native island of Terschilling, in company, and sighted Novaya Zeinlya, in latitude 73 25' N., on the 4th of July. He sailed along the coast, passing Cape Nassau on the 10th, and arrived at the edge of the ice on the 13th. From July 13 to August 3, Barents continued to seek a passage through the pack, searching for a lane in every direction, from Cape Nassau to the Orange Islands at the extreme north-west of Novaya Zemlya. During this close and careful exa...« less