CHAPTER XIII 
POLAR EUROPE 
ExprorraTion of arctic lands in extreme North- 
ern Europe has continued, though irregularly, 
despite economic and political disturbances; it 
demands brief consideration. European Russia 
is considered in connection with its great outlying 
archipelago, Novaya Zemlya, in Chapter XV. 
POLAR NORWAY 
The history of the Scandinavian people is of 
deep interest to all who honor men moved by a 
spirit of adventure and endowed with resolute 
courage to face and conquer adverse conditions 
of nature. Rarely has any race equalled and none 
surpassed this folk along these lines. Through 
the past five hundred years their changes in life- 
methods have been slow and conservative, since 
Magnus Olaus in his “History of the Northern 
Nations”, Rome, 1554, picturesquely outlined them. 
Confined to a narrow region, nowhere exceeding 
two hundred fifty miles in width, Norway faces 
tempestuous seas, bordering the arctic circle. 
Its people have prospered on wealth wrested from 
the ocean, rather than on the productions of an 
unfriendly soil. 
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