WEALTH OF SPITSBERGEN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1943, 22 February 1919, Page 1

WEALTH OF SPITSBERGEN.

The mineral worth of Spitsbergen was emphasised in a lecture delivered in London recently. Sir Martin Conway, who explored the islands in 1896, said the part of the main island south of the Seven Glaciers was recognised as belonging to Britain throughout the seventeenth century. That area included the whole of the coal and mineral district now attracting attention. The north-west of the island belonged unquestionably to the Dutch. No other country ever succeeded in maintaining a right continuously even to a .single harbour. If mining became a successful industry, reindeer ranches might well provide an important part of the miners’ sustenance. The eiderdown industry was likewise capable of great development, if a close time could be imposed to protect the birds and their eggs. Mr A. G. Pouting, who accompanied Scott’s Polar Expedition, and who has recently visited Spitsbergen on behalf of the Northern Exploration Company, said he had seen great tracts of land where the coal seams could easily be traced by the eye. At Kecherchc Bay he tramped along the side of a mountain several miles long and some 1,500 ft. high, which seemed to be a solid mass of iron ore, so rich (halt a magnet held to the ground would pick up fragments of it. No shafts ■would be necessary, and the ore could be carried from the mountain side to the ship. The ore had been found to average over 65 per cent, of magnetic iron, which was twice as rich as any workable deposits known in the British Isles. Kecherche Bay, where the deposits, enough to last Great Britain for centuries, were situated, was not more than five days’ voyage by tramp steamer. It was small wonder that in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty the Germans demanded a free hand in the organisation of Spitsbergen; but the Nor'tiiern Exploration Company’s expe-'” dition took possession of the German claims, dismantled the wireless apparatus, and unfurled the Union Jack on the flagstaff that formerly (low the German colours. Seventeen different kinds of minerals have been discovered, including gold-bearing quartz.