Raised beaches were frequently noticed. In one case, on a beach fifty feet above the present sea-level, a pine tree, evidently of considerable age and about twenty feet in length, was found where it had obviously been thrown up by the tide in the bygone years when the beach formed the shore of the sea. Under this beach there was a bed of sandstone showing fossils of plant remains, while above it towered basalt cliffs five hundred feet high. Lignite and bituminous shale were met with in the sandstone under the basalt, and, in muddy stretches of country, horns and other remains of reindeer were found, though there are no living representatives of these animals now on the islands. Among the fossils brought away was one of a plant long since extinct in all parts of the world save Japan, where the tree is still a flourishing variety. While Franz Josef Land was being explored and mapped, a private expedition formed by Sir Martin Conway visited Spitzbergen. It was this island which Sir John Franklin advocated should be the base of operations for an expedition to the Pole. The reason for this opinion was the belief that Spitzbergen was merely the most southerly point of a chain of islands, if not of an island continent, stretching away to the north. A similar idea, held in regard to Franz Josef Land, was dispelled by the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition; the information which was made available on the return of the Conway party also dispelled the Franklin view. Curiously enough the objective of the expedition is one of the most anciently discovered lands in the Arctic regions, and one that has a history full of incident; yet the interior was unknown to man from the time of its discovery in the sixteenth century to the time when Sir Martin Conway and his companions pushed their way in from the coast. Owing to the tail-end of the Gulf Stream reaching as far as its shores, the seas round Spitzbergen are freer from ice than any other seas in equally high latitudes. Situated in from 80° to 82° N., the group of islands, to which the single name is given, was first discovered by two Dutch navigators, Barendszoon and Heemskirk, who, in the year 1596, were trying to find a way of reaching China through the Arctic Sea. Eleven years later, Hudson sailed among the islands while trying for a northern route to the Indies. Failing in his attempt to get round by the north, he returned to Spitzbergen and saw how the waters were literally teeming with whales, walrus, seals, and other oil-giving animals. A flourishing fishery was started, and for years proved a bone of contention among the various maritime nations. No one country caring to annex the islands, they were practically a no-man's land, where each little colony of fishers were as a law unto themselves, though not necessarily to any one else. Consequently fights were frequent and much ill-will engendered, until the Dutch and the British Governments stepped in and came to a mutual understanding on the matter.