THE LAND ANNEXATIONS 1898-1925 PIONEERS Søren Zachariassen COMPANIES Norwegian German Swedish British American Russian/Norwegian Others THE CLAIM SIGNS The claim signs ADOLF HOEL SOURCES The Northern Exploration Company Ltd – NEC NEC was founded in 1910, with a share capital of £ 100, soon to be expanded to the enormous sum of £ 125 000. The company had its golden days during World War 1. The main task for this company were the occupations made in Svalbard by Ernest Mansfield during earlier years. These occupations were bought from NEC in 1911 and in the very same year, they started to establish New-London and the promising marble-quarry situated on Blomstrandhalvøya. Ernest Mansfield was hired to take care of the business and he managed to get hold of large investment sums. NEC held several areas, and most of them consisted of coal. They also investigated other sorts of minerals, as zink, copper-pyrite, asbestos, iron and marble. Their claim boards told, in three different languages, that this very area was occupied by NEC as early as 1905. Great optimism ruled, although some of their projects were rather hopeless and never turned into anything profitable. The company held large areas of occupations, but did not manage to produce very much, or rather nothing at all. In 1920, the company expanded their share capital to £ 1 000 000 and claimed the proprietary right of areas equally to 1/6 of Svalbard’s territory. They ended up getting 650 km² and the government bought their properties, houses and all for NOK 100 000 (£ 10 000). NEC went bankrupt in 1929.