Abstract
JAN MAYEN ISLAND lies in 71° N. latitude, 8-9° W. longitude, and is approximately 300 miles north of Iceland, 200 east of Greenland, and 600 west and north-west respectively of Tromsö and Aalesund—the leading hunting ports in Norway. It was possibly discovered in 1607 by Henry Hudson and named “Hudson's Tutches”; the name, nevertheless, by which it is now known commemorates a Dutch seaman, Jan Jacobsz May, who visited the island in 1614. The evidence for the earlier visit by Hudson can scarcely be regarded as trustworthy. May's voyage, on the other hand, is well supported by documentary evidence. Immediately following its discovery, Jan Mayen became frequented almost every year by rival Dutch and British whalers. As a whaling and sealing centre, however, the island was markedly inferior to Spitsbergen. Its import ance was, nevertheless, far from small, and the British. Government is said to have made a grant of it to the Corporation of Hull in 1618. The number of whalers frequenting the island, however, dropped off very considerably about 1635, the immediate cause being probably a series of bad ice years.
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WORDIE, J. A Summer Visit to Jan Mayen Island. Nature 109, 15–18 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/109015a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/109015a0