John Allen Howe and Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen

“ Greenland is a Danish colony, inasmuch as the west coast and also the southern east coast belong to the Danish crown. The scattered settlements of Europeans on the southern parts of the coasts are Danish, and the trade is a monopoly of the Danish government. ”

“ The land mammals of Greenland are decidedly more American than European; the musk-ox, the banded lemming (Cuniculus torquatus) , the white polar wolf, of which there seems to have been a new invasion recently round the northern part of the country to the east coast, the Eskimo and the dog—probably also the reindeer—have all come from America, while the other land mammals, the polar bear, the polar fox, the Arctic hare, the stoat (Mustela erminea) , are perfectly circumpolar forms. ”

“ The climate of the east coast is on the whole considerably more arctic than that of the west coast on corresponding latitudes; the land is much more completely snow-covered, and the snow-line goes considerably lower. The probability also is that there is more precipitation, and that the mean temperatures are lower. [35] The well-known strangely warm and dry föhn-winds of Greenland occur both on the west and the east coast; they are more local than was formerly believed, and are formed by cyclonic winds passing either over mountains or down the outer slope of the inland ice. ”

“ The reason is to be found in its geographical position, a cold ice-covered polar current running south along the land, while not far outside there is an open warmer sea, a circumstance which, while producing a cold climate, must also give rise to much precipitation, the land being thus exposed to the alternate erosion of a rough atmosphere and large glaciers. On the east coast of Baffin Land and Labrador there are similar conditions. The result is that the east coast of Greenland has the largest system of typical fjords known on the earth’s surface. ”

“ A Danish coloni in Greenland might seem to many not to be a cheerful place at best; though in the long summer days they would certainly find some of those on the southern fjords comparatively pleasant. The fact is, however, that most people who ever lived some time in Greenland always long to go back. There are generally in a coloni three or four Danish houses, built of wood and pitched over, in addition to storehouses and a blubber-boiling establishment. ”

“ The decline in the value of the trade, which was formerly very profitable, has to a great extent been brought about by the fall in the price of seal-oil. It might be expected that there should be a decrease in the Greenland seal fisheries, caused by the European and American sealers catching larger quantities every year, especially along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, and so actually diminishing the number of the animals in the Greenland seas. The statistics of South Greenland, however, do not seem to demonstrate any such decrease. ”

“ Along the west coast of Greenland the mountains are generally not quite so high, but even here peaks of 5000 and 6000 ft. are not uncommon. As a whole the coasts are unusually mountainous, and Greenland forms in this respect an interesting exception, as there is no other known land of such a size so filled along its coasts on all sides with high mountains and deep fjords and valleys. ”

“ The object of the monopoly is solely for the good of the Greenlanders—to prevent spirits being sold to them, and the vice, disease and misery which usually attend the collision between natives and civilization of the trader’s type being introduced into the primitive arctic community. ”

“ The facies of the fossils is, according to Mr Etheridge, North American and Canadian, though many of the species are British. The corals are few in number, but the Molluscoida (Polyzoa) are more numerous in species and individuals. No Secondary rocks have been discovered in the extreme northern parts of West Greenland, but they are present on the east and west coasts in more southerly latitudes than Smith Sound. ”

“ About 310 species of vascular plants are found, of which about forty species are American, forty-four European-Asiatic, fifteen endemic, and the rest common both to America and Europe or Asia. We thus see that the American and the European-Asiatic elements of the flora are nearly equivalent; and if the flora of Arctic North America were better known, the number of plants common to America might be still more enlarged. ”

“ The last ship that is known to have visited the Norse colony in Greenland returned to Norway in 1410. With no support from home the settlements seem to have decayed rapidly. It has been supposed that they were destroyed by attacks of the Eskimo, who about this period seem to have become more numerous and to have extended southwards along the coast from the north. ”

“ The motion of the outwards-creeping inland ice will naturally be more independent of the configurations of the underlying land in the interior, where its thickness is so enormous, than near the margin where it is thinner. ”

“ The wild vegetation in the height of summer is, in favourable situations, profuse in individual plants, though scanty in species. The plants are of the usual arctic type, and identical with or allied to those found in Lapland or on the summits of the highest British hills. ”

“ Norway, Scotland, British Columbia and Alaska, Patagonia and Chile, and even Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya, whose west coasts are far more indented than their east ones. Greenland forms the most prominent exception, its eastern coast being quite as much indented as its western. ”

“ Laurentian gneiss forms the greatest mass of the exposed rocks of the country bare of ice. They are found on both sides of Smith Sound, rising to heights of 2000 ft., and underlie the Miocene and Cretaceous rocks of Disco Island, Noursoak Peninsula and the Oolites of Pendulum Island in East Greenland. Ancient schists occur on the east coast south of Angmagssalik, and basalts and schists are found in Scoresby Fjord. ”

“ The principle upon which the government acts is to give the natives low prices for their produce, but to sell them European articles of necessity at prime cost, and other stores, such as bread, at prices which will scarcely pay for the purchase and freight, while no merchandise is charged, on an average, more than 20% over the cost price in Denmark. ”

“ In the north along the shores of Smith Sound these traces of the gradual upheaval of the land, or sinking of the sea, are very marked; but they are also very distinct in the south, although not found so high above sea-level, which seems to show that the upheaval has been greater in the north. In Uvkusigsat Fjord (72° 20′ N.) the highest terrace is 480 ft. above the sea. [23] On Manitsok (65° 30′ N.) the highest raised beach was 360 ft. above the sea. [24] In the Isortok Fjord (67° 11′ N.) the highest raised beach is 380 ft. above sea-level. ”

“ The mean temperature of the warmest month, July, in the interior should be, reduced to sea-level, on the 64th parallel 32° F., and that of the coldest month, January, about −22° F., while in North Greenland it is probably −40° reduced to sea-level. ”

“ That the nodules found were lying on gneissic rock, with no basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood, does not prove that the iron may not originate from basalt, for the nodules may have been transported by the glaciers, like other erratic blocks, and will stand erosion much longer than the basalt, which may long ago have disappeared. This iron seems, however, in several respects to be unlike the celebrated large nodules of iron found by Nordenskiöld at Ovifak, but appears to resemble much more closely the softer kind of iron nodules found by Steenstrup in the basalt ”

“ At the bottom of Mogens Heinesen Fjord, 62° 30′ N., the peaks are 6300 ft., and in the region of Umanak, 63° N., they even exceed 6600 ft. At Umivik, where Nansen began his journey across the inland ice, the highest peak projecting through the ice-covering was Gamel’s Nunatak, 6440 ft., in 64° 34′ N. In the region of Angmagssalik, which is very mountainous, the mountains rise to 6500 ft., the most prominent peak being Ingolf’s Fjeld, in 66° 20′ N., about 6000 ft., which is seen from far out at sea, and forms an excellent landmark. ”

“ In addition to their functions as guardians of the poor, the parish members have to investigate crimes and punish misdemeanours, settle litigations and divide inheritances. They can impose fines for small offences not worth sending before the inspector, and, in cases of high misdemeanour, have the power of inflicting corporal punishment. ”

“ The highest known velocities of glaciers were measured by Ryder in the Upernivik glacier (in 73° N.) , where, between the 13th and 14th of August of 1886, he found a velocity of 125 ft. in twenty-four hours, and an average velocity during several days of 101 ft. (Danish) . [22] It was, however, ascertained that there is a great difference between the velocities of the glaciers in winter and in summer. For instance, Ryder found that the Upernivik glacier had an average velocity of only 33 ft. ”

“ Silurian.—Upper Silurian, having a strong relation to the Wenlock group of Britain, but with an American facies, and Lower Silurian, with a succession much the same as in British North America, are found on the shores of Smith Sound, and Nathorst has discovered them in King Oscar Fjord, but not as yet so far south as the Danish possessions.
3. Devonian rocks are believed to occur in Igaliko and Tunnudiorbik Fjords, in S.W. Greenland, but as they are unfossiliferous sandstone, rapidly disintegrating, this cannot be known. ”

“ Walrus tusks and walrus hides, which in the days of the old Norse settlements were the chief articles of export, are now of little importance.
Population.—The area of the entire Danish colony is estimated at 45,000 sq. m., and its population in 1901 was 11,893. The Europeans number about 300. The Eskimo population of Danish Greenland (west coast) seems to have decreased since the middle of the 18th century. ”

“ It is possible that some of these rocks are also of Huronian age, but it is doubtful whether the rocks so designated by the geologists of the “Alert” and “Discovery” expedition are really the rocks so known in Canada, or are a continuous portion of the fundamental or oldest gneiss of the north-west of Scotland and the western isles. ”

“ The inspectors, in addition to being trade superintendents, are magistrates, but serious crime is very rare. Though the officials are all-powerful, local councils or parsissaet were organized in 1857 in every district. ”

“ In addition there are generally from twenty to several hundred Eskimo, who live in huts built of stone and turf, each entered by a short tunnel. Lately their houses in the colonis have also to some extent been built of imported wood. Following the west coast northward, the trading centres are these: in the south inspectorate, Julianehaab, near which are remains of the early Norse settlements of Eric the Red and his companions (the Öster-Bygd) ”

“ The decrease may chiefly have been due to infectious diseases, especially a very severe epidemic of smallpox. During the last half of the 19th century there was on the whole a slight increase of the native population. ”