for knowledge could not long tolerate the existence upon the map of the world of so large a tract of terra incognita.

Thanks in particular to the sacrifices and exertions of the Danes, the narrow coast-line of Greenland has now been pretty thoroughly mapped, and examined from the geological point of view-first the west coast, from Cape Farewell northwards, and afterwards the east coast, which the driftice from the polar sea renders much more difficult of access. In 1875 Prof. Johnstrup issued a proposal for a systematic geological and geographical investigation of Greenland; and, from 1876 onwards, a number of Danish explorers have quietly carried on this arduous and admirable work in the cause of science, the results being for the most part published from time to time in the excellent Meddelelser om Grönland (Reports from Greenland'). Special mention must be made in this connection of the geologist, K. J. V. Steenstrup, who spent eight summers and five winters in Greenland; and also of J. A. D. Jensen, R. R. I. Hammer, C. H. Ryder, G. F. Holm, V. Garde, and A. Kornerup. In this way the Danes have systematically explored, and for the most part charted, the west coast, right up to their most northern colonies, Upernivik and Tessiusak (about 73° N. lat.). The country to the north, along Melville Bay and Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, and Robeson Channel, has for the most part been explored by English and American Arctic Expeditions, which have here reached the most northern points upon the globe as yet known to have been attained by any civilised being. The Nares Expedition (1875 76) penetrated as far as 83° 22′, and Lieutenant Lockwood, a member of the Greely Expedition (1881-84) of melancholy celebrity, is said to have pushed on as far as 83° 24'.

The east coast of Greenland has also of late years been systematically explored by the Danes, especially by Holm's 'woman-boat' expedition of 1883-85. For the rest, the belt of drift ice barricading this almost inaccessible coast has been broken through for investigation only at scattered points-in particular by the Sabine, Scoresby, and Koldewey Expeditions, by the Hansa Expedition, and the Swedish Sophia Expedition. Thus there are still great stretches of this coast of which we know very little. For instance, between Cape Bismarck (about 77° N. lat.) and Independence Bay (about 811° N. lat.), explored by Peary and Astrup in 1892, there are only two points where land has been descried, and that more than a hundred years ago (1770 and 1775).

It may be said, then, that we are now acquainted in broad outline with the coasts of this remarkable country. They are not everywhere equally inhospitable; yet it must on the whole be described as a land where only an extremely easily contented race of men are able, with the utmost toil, to support life without extraneous help. The narrow strip of land along the entire coast of Greenland is wild, naked, and rocky. While the country is more than 800 miles wide, the ice-free coast strip very rarely (as at Holstenborg) extends to so much as 100 miles. As a rule it is only a mile or two in width, and in many places the glaciers stretch right down to the sea. The outer edge of the coast has a flora consisting of lichen, moss, and sedge. Far up the long fiords of the south-west coast may be found scanty copses of willow, dwarf birch, and juniper; and in the colonies on this coast, cabbages, radishes, carrots, and parsley are grown-indeed, in favourable summers, in the south, one may even hope for green peas. But no forest tree grows on this

a little crop
of
coast, no corn ripens.

In miserable huts of earth and stones, some 10,000 Greenland Eskimos manage to support life on the coasts of this country, carrying on a desperate struggle for existence by means of seal- and whale-hunting and fishing. They are kindly, amiable, children of nature, who, like all such races, must inevitably be exterminated by the benefactions of civilisation, which are quite unsuited to them. All travellers are agreed that the Greenlanders love their poor, barren country, and we do not find that they seek to better their condition by emigration.

In its own way it is a fine country, with a wild and stately natural beauty, not easily to be equalled. It is true that wild mountain forms, with jagged peaks and pinnacles and deep narrow fiords, are to be found in abundance in Norway, which, indeed, especially in the wild mountain districts of Nordland and along the Vestfiord, bears no small resemblance to Greenland. But in Greenland the mountains are loftier and much more barren right down to the coast; and not only do whales and seals abound in the fiords, but also swarms of icebergs formed by the calving' of the glaciers. And then the glaciers themselves! We have glaciers, too; but in comparison with those of Greenland the mightiest of them is as a little brook to the Amazon or the Nile.

We talk about the Folgefonn, the Justedal glacier or the Svartisen glaciers; they are dwarfs and pigmies compared to the Jakobshavn glacier, to say nothing of the Humboldt glacier, which has a frontage on Kane Basin of something like seventy miles.

By day and by night, through summer and winter, year out and year in, these innumerable glaciers glide off on every side, as outlets for the inland ice; and they travel at

no such a slow pace either. Whereas Sexe found the rate of the Buar glacier's advance to be about one-tenth of a metre in the twenty-four hours, Helland ascertained that the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland travels twenty metres in the same space of time-that is to say, 200 times as fast. Ryder, moreover, noted a still higher rate of advance in the glacier at Augpadlartok, viz. over thirty-one metres in the twenty-four hours. As rivers, with us, form outlets for lakes, so these numerous and mighty glaciers or ice-rivers round the entire coast of Greenland form outlets for the inland ice.

6

It is no small quantity of ice that these frozen rivers carry to the sea. The bulk of ice which is calved' or thrown. off by the glaciers has been estimated by Rink at more than 300 million cubic metres annually; and this is certainly an understatement; perhaps ten times that amount would be nearer the truth. It was supposed in Rink's time that the glaciers on the west coast were the main channels by which the inland ice disgorged itself into the sea; whereas Holm's 'woman-boat' expedition along the east coast (1883-85) has shown that the reverse is the case, the main outlets being to the east.

The atmosphere of the Greenland coast is cold, raw, and moist. The sea along the rocky shore is full of ice the whole year round, some of it consisting of icebergs given off by the glaciers, and the rest of drift-ice from the Polar sea, carried down the east coast of Greenland by a mighty current, which then doubles Cape Farewell, and follows the line of the west coast northwards. The mean temperature here is accordingly far lower than that usually found in these latitudes. The country is not only sea-girt but icegirt. It is the land of the Great Ice, covered by the

K

mightiest ice-field hitherto known on the northern hemisphere, extending perhaps to more than 1,500,000 square

kilometres.

One would imagine that the Greenlanders themselves would have found it to their interest, or would have been driven by necessity, to acquaint themselves with the vast uplands of ice which glide seawards in the form of glaciers along their entire coast. This, however, is not the case. The Greenlander himself has a superstitious terror of the inland ice. It is the home of his evil spirits, his ghosts, his apparitions and shades (tarajuatsiak), his trolls (timersek and erkilik), his ice-men, who are supposed to be twice as tall as ordinary people, and a whole host of other supernatural beings. Besides, what should he do there? His life is a continual fight for food, and on the inland ice there is neither whale nor seal, neither reindeer nor ptarmigan-in short, no animal fit for food. It is a lifeless desert.

We need not wonder, then, that the Greenlanders themselves have scarcely any knowledge of the inland ice; and until a few years ago the rest of the world was equally ignorant.

It is clear, nevertheless, that our forefathers were very well acquainted with the nature of the country. We read in the Kongespeil (The Mirror of Kings'): But as to your question whether the land is free from ice, or covered with ice like the sea, then you must know that there is a small portion of the land which is bare of ice, but all the rest is covered with it.'

This knowledge of the interior, however, had been lost in the lapse of centuries, and had given place to the most. extravagant notions, based upon anything in the world except actual observation.