Spitzbergen

Spitzbergen, a group of rocky islands in the Arctic Ocean, 400 miles N.W. of the North Cape. It consists of six large and many smaller members. West Spitzbergen, the chief, has an area of over 15,000 square miles, a deeply indented coast, and a mountainons surface covered almost entirely with ice and snow. N.E. of this lies North-East Land, which is a broad plateau swept by a glacier often 3,000 feet thick. S.E. is Stans Foreland, and farther E., across Olga Strait, Wicke, or King Charles Land. The formation of all is granitic, and they rise from a comparatively shallow submarine plain connecting them with Greenland. A branch of the Gulf Stream keeps the access to the west coast open even till late in the year, and permits the growth of a scanty Arctic vegetation. Reindeer are rather plentiful, and the ice-fox and polar-bear also exist, birds being exceedingly numerous. The sea abounds in Cetaceans, though the Greenland whale is almost exterminated.