 In the 17th and 18th centuries, English whalers referred to the islands as "Greenland", a practice still followed in 1780 and criticized by Sigismund Bacstrom at that time.The "Spitzbergen" spelling was used in English during the 19th century, for instance by Beechey, Laing, and the Royal Society.In 1906, the Arctic explorer Sir Martin Conway thought that the "Spitzbergen" spelling was incorrect, preferring "Spitsbergen", as he noted that the name was Dutch, not German.