Norddeutscher Lloyd Steamship Com Pany

NORDDEUTSCHER LLOYD STEAMSHIP COM PANY. The Norddeutscher Lloyd was founded on February 20, 1857, by Consul Hermann Heinrich Meier; their first line of steamships plied between Bremen and English ports, and on June 19, 1858, the Company's first ocean-going liner, the Bremen, sailed for New York and inaugurated their transatlantic service. The following years were principally devoted to expanding this traffic ; by 1868 the company's vessels were serving all the large ports of the eastern States; the '70's saw the inauguration of the services to the West Indies and Baltimore; and by 1890 the company, under the management of Lohmann, had achieved the position of fourth largest shipping concern in the world. In 188r the Lloyd, following the example of the British companies, had inaugurated a fast service to New York, and in 1886 the Impe rial mail lines to the Far East had been opened. Heinrich Wie gand, who assumed control after Lohmann's death, brought the Lloyd into the position of a leading passenger line of the pre War period; under him the twin-screw system was introduced and the existing network of lines further developed, while at the turn of the century the fast steamers of the "Kaiser" class rep resented what then was the last word in ship construction. Shortly before the outbreak of the World War Lloyd's fleet had reached a figure little short of i,000,000 tonnage displacement (British).

The Peace Treaty destroyed at a blow sixty years of construc tive endeavour. In 1914 the Lloyd had owned a fleet of 135 ocean steamers and 358 tugs, river launches and other auxiliary craft, with a total tonnage of 982,951.

Since that date, however, the Lloyd has re-acquired, bought and built a large number of ships; by these means it has brought its tonnage (excluding several services heretofore amalgamated with the Lloyd) to approximately 75% of its pre-War figure. On Jan. I, 1935, it owned a fleet of 746,848 tons, including the two quadruple-screw turbine steamers "Bremen" and "Europa," em ployed in the trans-Atlantic service, the Far East express-liner "Scharnhorst," supplemented within the year by the "Potsdam" and "Gneisenau" at a combined tonnage of approximately 54,300 B.R.T., as well as a number of newly built freighters. On her maiden voyage to New York on July 22, 1929, the "Bremen" captured the trans-Atlantic record, later relinquished to the "Europa," until again the "Bremen" on her century voyage on Nov. 8, 1934, reached the mark of 4 days, 14 hours, 27 minutes for the westward trip. Other ships of the Lloyd in the New York run are the "Columbus," "Berlin," "General von Steuben" and "Stuttgart." Its offices in the United States and Canada are op erated jointly with the Hamburg-American Line.

The capital of the company was 52,840,00o marks, as of Dec.

31, 1933, and 1,660,00o marks in preference shares. (EH.) A fuller account of the early history of this great commercial undertaking may be found in P. Newbaur's Der Norddeutsche Lloyd (3 volumes, 1907), while additional material covering 6o years is available in the volume Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen 1857-1917 (1917).

NORDENSKIoLD, NILS ADOLF ERIK, BARON

(183 2 1901), geographer and Arctic explorer, was born at Helsingfors, on Nov. 18, 1832. He was the son of Nils Gustav Nordenskiold, a mineralogist and a traveller. Compelled to leave Russia for political reasons, he settled at Stockholm. He received an offer from Otto Torell, the geologist, to accompany him on an expedi tion to Spitsbergen. To the observations of Torell on glacial phenomena Nordenskiold added the discovery at Bell Sound of remains of Tertiary plants, and on his return became pro fessor and curator of the mineralogical department of the Swe dish State Museum. In 1861 he took part in Torell's second Spitsbergen expedition. Of the further expedition to the same quarter promoted by the Swedish academy of science in 1864, Nordenskiold was the leader. Three years later he headed an expedition in the iron steamer "Sofia," and reached the highest northern latitude (80 42') then attained in the eastern hemi sphere. In 1870, with three young naturalists, he visited the vast inland ice-sheet of Greenland. On his next expedition in 1872 the tenders were caught in the ice, and the crews of the three vessels were forced to winter in Spitsbergen. In 1875-1876, how ever, a successful voyage eastwards, including the ascent of the Yenisei, led him to attempt the discovery of the long-sought North-East Passage. Starting from Karlskrona on June 22, 1878, in the "Vega," he doubled Cape Chelyuskin in the following August, and after being frozen in at the end of September near Bering Strait, completed the voyage successfully in the following summer.

On his return to Sweden he received an enthusiastic welcome, and in April 188o was made a baron and a commander of the Order of the Nordstjerna. In 1883 he again visited the east coast of Greenland, and succeeded in forcing through the great ice barrier, a feat attempted in vain during more than three cen turies. He died at Stockholm on Aug. 12, 1901.

Baron Nordenskiold also published Facsimile Atlas (1889) and Periplus (1897). The former contains reproductions of geographical documents printed during the 15th and 16th centuries, and the latter, a work of far greater research, deals with the history of early carto graphy and the sailing charts in use among mariners during the middle ages.