INTRODUCTION

Summary

The first work, in the following volume of Arctic Miscellanies, is that of Frederick Martens, of Hamburg, describing a voyage which he made to Spitzbergen in 1671, with a description of that great Arctic island, or rather archipelago, and the productions he observed on its shores or in the seas around. The book of Martens was translated from the German into English, and published in 1694 in a collection of voyages, entitled, “An account of several late Voyages and Discoveries to the South and North, towards the Streights of Magellan, the South Seas, the vast tracts of land beyond Hollandia Nova, etc., also towards Nova Zembla, Greenland or Spitzberg, Groynland or Engrondland, etc., by Sir John Narborough” and others. This translation and the other narratives were dedicated by the publishers (who were “Printers to the Royal Society”) to the celebrated “Samuel Pepys, Esq., Secretary of the Admiralty of England.” It seems, on the whole, to be a very exact translation of Martens’ book. The plates, which in most cases are very rude, it has not been considered advisable to reproduce, although some of them are graphic and intelligible enough. And here it may not be unacceptable to quote what the author himself says respecting his production, in his address to the reader in the original German edition,—which address was left untranslated in the English version of the work now reprinted.