chief pilot, but it merely made several unsuccessful attempts
to enter the Kara Sea through the Yugor Strait. The third
expedition was more important. Two vessels sailed from
Amsterdam on the 10th (20th) of May 1596, under the command
of Jacob van Heemskerck and Corneliszoon Rijp. Barents
accompanied Heemskerck as pilot, and Gerrit de Veer, the
historian of the voyage, was on board as mate. The masses
of ice in the straits leading to the Sea of Kara, and the
impenetrable nature of the pack near Novaya Zemlya, had
suggested the advisability of avoiding the land and, by keeping
a northerly course, of seeking a passage in the open sea They
sailed northwards, and on the 9th (19th) of June discovered
Bear Island Continuing on the same course they sighted a
mountainous snow-covered land in about 80° N. lat, soon
afterwards being stopped by the polar pack ice This important
discovery was named Spitsbergen, and was believed to be a
part of Greenland Arriving at Bear Island again on the 1st of
July, Rijp parted company, while Heemskerck and Barents
proceeded eastward, intending to pass round the northern
extreme of Novaya Zemlya. On the 26th of August (Sept. 5)
they reached Ice Haven, after rounding the northern
extremity of the land. Here they wintered in a house built
out of driftwood and planks from the ’tween decks and the
deck-house of the vessel In the spring they made their way
in boats to the Lapland coast; but Barents died during the
voyage This was the first time that an arctic winter was
successfully faced The voyages of Barents stand in the first
rank among the polar enterprises of the 16th century. They
led to flourishing whale and seal fisheries which long enriched
the Netherlands.
The English enterprises were continued by the Muscovy Company, and by associations of patriotic merchants of London; and even the East India Company sent an expedition under Captain Waymouth in 1602 to seek for a Waymouth.passage by the opening seen by Davis, but it had no success.
The best servant of the Muscovy Company in the work of polar discovery was Henry Hudson. His first voyage was undertaken in 1607, when he discovered the most northern known point of the east coast of Greenland in 73° N. named “Hold with Hope,” Hudson.and examined the ice between Greenland and Spitsbergen, probably reaching Hakluyt’s Headland in 79° 50′ N. On his way home he discovered the island now called Jan Mayen, which he named “Hudson’s Tutches.” In his second expedition. during the season of 1608, Hudson examined the edge of the ice between Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya In his third voyage he was employed by the Dutch East India Company; he again approached Novaya Zemlya, but was compelled to return westwards, and he explored the coasts of North America, discovering the Hudson river. In 1610 he entered Hudson Strait, and discovered the great bay which bears and immortalizes his name. He was obliged to winter there, undergoing no small hardships. On his way home his crew mutinied and set him, his little son and some sick men adrift in a boat, and the explorer perished in the seas he had opened up.
The voyages of Hudson led immediately to the Spitsbergen whale fishery From 1609 to 1612 Jonas Poole made four voyages for the prosecution of this lucrative business, Whale and he was followed by Fotherby, Baffin, Joseph, and Edge. These bold Spitsbergen Whale Fishery.seamen, while in the pursuit of whales, added considerably to the knowledge of the archipelago of islands known under the name of Spitsbergen, and in 1617 Captain Edge discovered an island to the eastward, which he named Wyche’s Land.
About the same period the kings of Denmark began to send expeditions for the rediscovery of the lost Greenland Danish colony. In 1605 Christian IV. sent out three ships, under the Englishmen Cunningham and Hall and a Dane named Lindenov, Danish Voyages.which reached the western coast of Greenland and had much intercourse with the Eskimo Other expeditions followed in 1606–1607.
Meanwhile, the merchant adventurers of London continued to push forward the western discovery. Sir Thomas Button, in command of two ships, the “Resolution” and “Discovery, ” sailed from England in May 1612. He entered Hudson Bay, crossed to Button.its western shore, and wintered at the mouth of a river in 57° 10′ N. which was named Nelson river after the master of the ship, who died and was buried there. Next year Button explored the shore of Southampton Island as far as 65° N., and returned home in the autumn of 1613. An expedition under Captain Gibbons dispatched in 1614 to Hudson Bay was a failure; but in 1615 Robert Bylot as master and William Baffin as pilot and navigator in the “Discovery” examined the coasts of Hudson Strait and to the north of Hudson Bay, and Baffin, who was the equal of Davis as a scientific seaman, made many valuable observations. Baffin.In 1616 Bylot and Baffin again set out in the “Discovery” Sailing up Davis Strait they passed that navigator’s farthest point at Sanderson’s Hope, and sailed round the great channel with smaller channels leading from it which has been known ever since as Baflin Bay. Baffin named the most northern opening Smith Sound, after the first governor of the East India Company, and the munificent promoter of the voyage, Sir Thomas Smith. Lancaster Sound and Jones Sound were named after other promoters and friends of the voyage. The fame of Baffin mainly rests upon the discovery of a great channel extending north from Davis Strait; but it was unjustly dimmed for many years, owing to the omission of Purchas to publish the navigator’s tabulated journal and map in his great collection of voyages. It was two hundred years before a new expedition sailed north through Baihn Bay. It may be mentioned, as an illustration of the value of these early voyages to modern science, that Professor Hansteen of Christiania made use of Baflin’s magnetic observations in the compilation of his series of magnetic maps. In 1619 Denmark sent out an expedition, under the command of Jens Munk, in search of the north-west passage, with two ships and 64 men. They reached the West coast of Hudson Bay, where they wintered near Churchill river, but all died with the exception of one man, a boy, and Munk himself, who managed to sail home in the smallest ship.
In 1631 two expeditions were dispatched, one by the merchants of London, the other by those of Bristol. In the London ship “Charles” Luke Fox explored the western side of Hudson Bay as far as the place called “Sir Thomas Roe’s Welcome.” Luke Fox; James.In August he encountered Captain James and the Bristol ship “Maria” in the middle of Hudson Bay, and went north until he reached “North-west Fox his farthest,” in 66° 47′ N, He then returned home and wrote an entertaining narrative. Captain James had to winter off Charlton Island, in James Bay, the southern extreme of Hudson Bay, and did not return until October 1632. Another English voyager, Captain Wood, attempted, without success, to discover a north-east passage in 1676 through the sea round the North Pole, but was wrecked on the coast of Novaya Zemlya.
The 16th and 17th centuries were periods of discovery and daring enterprise. Hudson Strait and Bay, Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, the icy seas from Greenland to Spitsbergen and from Spitsbergen to Novaya Zemlya had all been explored; but much more was not discovered than had been well known to the Norsemen five or six centuries earlier. The following century was rather a period of reaping the results of former efforts than of discovery. It saw the settlement of the Hudson Bay Territory and of Greenland, and the development of the whale and seal fisheries.
The Hudson’s Bay Company was incorporated in 1670, and Prince Rupert sent out Zachariah Gillan, who wintered at Rupert river. At first very slow progress was made. A voyage undertaken by Mr Knight, nearly 80 years old, who had been appointed governor of the factory at Nelson river, was unfortunate, Scroggs.as his two ships were lost and the crews perished This was in 1719. In 1722 John Scroggs was sent from Churchill river in search of the missing ships, but merely entered Sir Thomas Roe’s Welcome and returned. His reports were believed to offer decisive proofs of the existence
