Note 165 — Chapter XLI · KOOLEMANS BEYNEN AND THE VOYAGES OF THE WILLEM BARENTSZ. SIR MARTIN CONWAY AND SPITSBERGEN. CAPTAIN BERNIER AND CANADIAN ARCTIC LANDS

Commodore Jansen was one of the most active and accomplished of the honorary corresponding members of our Royal Geographical Society of his time and the chief promoter of the revival of Arctic voyages in Holland. He saw much service in the Royal Dutch Navy, joining its surveying branch, and was for several years engaged on a survey in the Riouw Archipelago, the Straits of Sunda, and elsewhere. As a Lieutenant on board the frigate Prins van Oranje he served in the West Indies, and during a visit to Washington in 1851 formed a life-long friendship for Maury, the great American hydrographer. He contributed the chapter on land and sea breezes to Maury’s Physical Geography of the Sea and in 1864 published an important work The Latest Discoveries in Maritime Affairs. In the following year he became a Commodore in the Royal Dutch Navy, and was appointed to superintend the building of the ironclad Prins Hendrik, which he afterwards commanded. In 1868 he retired from active service, after a distinguished naval career of 35 years. At my request Jansen examined the Dutch archives with a view to a study of ice navigation in the Spitsbergen and Barentsz seas, and the results of his researches were published in the R. G. S. Proceedings (Old Series, IX. 9, 163). In 1873 he was appointed a Councillor of State, and attained the rank of Rear Admiral. He died in September 1894, aged 77.