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Edgeøya, occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is a Norwegian island located in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; it is the third largest island in this archipelago.〔Norwegian Polar Institute, 2008〕 An Arctic island, it forms part of the Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve, home to polar bears and reindeer. Its eastern side is covered by an ice field. The island is in area, making it the third largest in the Svalbard archipelago. The island is named after Thomas Edge (died 1624), an English merchant and whaler. It is seldom visited today.〔Svalbard Images, 2008〕 ==History== The history of Edgeøya's discovery has been a matter of dispute. Thomas Edge, writing in 1622, claimed the island was discovered by one of his ships in 1616. However, Joris Carolus, in a map published in 1614 and allegedly based on discoveries made by him the same year, shows what appears to be Edgeøya's south coast. Carolus showed the coastline split into two parts: "Onbekende Cust" (meaning "Unknown Coast" in Dutch) in the west, and "Morfyn" in the east. Islands are shown offshore of Morfyn. Martin Conway argued in 1901 that Carolus' chart indicated he discovered Edgeøya,〔Martin Conway, 1901〕 but, as Wielder points out, Conway was ignorant of a map (engraved in 1612) by the Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius, which illustrated a coastline to the east of Spitsbergen. The coastline, indented, with islands offshore, was labelled "Gerrits Eylant". Wielder believed this to be the first record of Edgeøya's south coast. Schilder, an expert on Dutch cartography, said Carolus merely copied both coastlines from earlier charts, while he believed that Plancius had copied some names from a chart by Mouris Willemsz, unknown to Wielder, that was published in 1608 or earlier by Cornelis Claeszoon (British Library, London). Willemsz's chart, which Schilder says shows Edgeøya labeled as "Groen Landt", doesn't show Edgeøya at all, but only shows a single coastline (not two) that is supposed to represent Spitsbergen. In fact, what appears to be Bjørnøya is shown to the southeast of Spitsbergen. Plancius had thus only created a duplicate Spitsbergen. Carolus, as well, made a duplicate Spitsbergen, as his ''Morfyn'' has an uncanny resemblance to Willemsz's ''Groen Landt''. This would indicate that the island would not have been discovered until 1616, as claimed by Edge. A 1617 letter written between the English whalers proves that Europeans had discovered the island at least at that late of date, or earlier, as Edge claims. Four Russian sailors were marooned on Edgeøya, or a small island off the coast of Edgeøya, from 1743 until September 1749. Three survived to tell an epic tale of survival. Author David Roberts wrote a book about his research on this story, ''Four Against The Arctic.''〔Four Against the Arctic: Shipwrecked for Six Years at the Top of the World. (2003). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-2431-0〕 He concluded, although not definitively, that the men were probably on a small island to the southeast of Edgeøya called Halvmåneøya, or Half Moon Island. While no major settlement grew upon Edgeøya, whaling and walrus hunting were extensive industries in the area. Remains of these can be found offshore of Edgeøya, on Bölscheøya in the Tusenøyane group. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Edgeøya」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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