Barentz

Barentz (or BARENTS), WILLIAM, a Dutch navigator, who acted as pilot in connection with several expeditions which sailed from Holland in search of a North-east passage, and who died off the coast of Nova Zembla, 20th June 1597. The first vessel, fitted out by the city of Amsterdam, sailed from Holland, June 5, 1594, reached the north-east extremity of Nova Zembla, and returned. A second expedition of seven vessels, sent out in the following year, started too late in the season to be successful; the third expedition of two ships, starting in May 1596, reached Spitzbergen, when the two parted. Barentz's vessel, doubling the north-east of Nova Zembla, encountered ice, and unable to sail eastward, turned towards the south. Barentz and his crew were frozen up in Ice Haven on September 1st, where they spent a miserable winter. On 13th June 1597 the crew left these desolate shores in two boats, and Barentz died shortly afterwards. The survivors reached the shores of Lapland, and were rescued. Captain Carlsen found Barentz's winter-quarters undisturbed in 1871, after a lapse of 274 years, and in 1875 part of his journal was recovered by another explorer. The Barents Sea between the European mainland and Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, and Franz-Josef Land, still preserves the name of this brave mariner. See Van Campen's Barents' Relics (Lond. 1877).