GREENE, ROBERT (c. 1560-1592), English dramatist and miscellaneous

writer, was born at Norwich about 1560. The identity of his father has

been disputed, but there is every reason to believe that he belonged to

the tradesmen's class and had small means. It is doubtful whether Robert

Greene attended Norwich grammar school; but, as an eastern counties man

(to one of whose plays, _Friar Bacon_, the Norfolk and Suffolk

borderland owes a lasting poetic commemoration) he naturally found his

way to Cambridge, where he entered St John's College as a sizar in 1575

and took his B.A. thence in 1579, proceeding M.A. in 1583 from Clare

Hall. His life at the university was, according to his own account,

spent "among wags as lewd as himself, with whom he consumed the flower

of his youth." In 1588 he was incorporated at Oxford, so that on some

of his title-pages he styles himself "utriusque Academiae in Artibus

Magister"; and Nashe humorously refers to him as "utriusque Academiae

Robertus Greene." Between the years 1578 and 1583 he had travelled

abroad, according to his own account very extensively, visiting France,

Germany, Poland and Denmark, besides learning at first-hand to "hate the

pride of Italie" and to know the taste of that poet's fruit, "Spanish

mirabolones." The grounds upon which it has been suggested that he took

holy orders are quite insufficient; according to the title-page of a

pamphlet published by him in 1585 he was then a "student in phisicke."

Already, however, after taking his M.A. degree, he had according to his

own account begun his London life, and his earliest extant literary

production was in hand as early as 1580. He now became "an author of

playes and a penner of love-pamphlets, so that I soone grew famous in

that qualitie, that who for that trade growne so ordinary about London

as Robin Greene?" "Glad was that printer," says Nashe, "that might bee

so blest to pay him deare for the very dregs of his wit." By his own

account he rapidly sank into the worst debaucheries of the town, though

Nashe declares that he never knew him guilty of notorious crime. He was

not without passing impulses towards a more righteous and sober life,

and was derided in consequence by his associates as a "Puritane and

Presizian." It is possible that he, as well as his bitter enemy, Gabriel

Harvey, exaggerated the looseness of his conduct. His marriage, which

took place in 1585 or 1586, failed to steady him; if Francesco, in

Greene's pamphlet _Never too late to mend_ (1590), is intended for the

author himself, it had been a runaway match; but the fiction and the

autobiographical sketch in the _Repentance_ agree in their account of

the unfaithfulness which followed on the part of the husband. He lived

with his wife, whose name seems to have been Dorothy ("Doll"; and cf.

Dorothea in _James IV._), for a while; "but forasmuch as she would

perswade me from my wilful wickednes, after I had a child by her, I cast

her off, having spent up the marriage-money which I obtained by her.

Then left I her at six or seven, who went into Lincolnshire, and I to

London," where his reputation as a playwright and writer of pamphlets of

"love and vaine fantasyes" continued to increase, and where his life was

a feverish alternation of labour and debauchery. In his last years he

took it upon himself to make war on the cutpurses and "conny-catchers"

with whom he came into contact in the slums, and whose doings he

fearlessly exposed in his writings. He tells us how at last he was

friendless "except it were in a fewe alehouses," where he was respected

on account of the score he had run up. When the end came he was a

dependant on the charity of the poor and the pitying love of the

unfortunate. Henri Murger has drawn no picture more sickening and more

pitiful than the story of Greene's death, as told by his Puritan

adversary, Gabriel Harvey--a veracious though a far from unprejudiced

narrator. Greene had taken up the cudgels provided by the Harvey

brothers on their intervention in the Marprelate controversy, and made

an attack (immediately suppressed) upon Gabriel's father and family in

the prose-tract _A Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or a Quaint Dispute

between Velvet Breeches and Cloth Breeches_ (1592). After a banquet

where the chief guest had been Thomas Nashe--an old associate and

perhaps a college friend of Greene's, any great intimacy with whom,

however, he seems to have been anxious to disclaim--Greene had fallen

sick "of a surfeit of pickle herringe and Rennish wine." At the house of

a poor shoemaker near Dowgate, deserted by all except his compassionate

hostess (Mrs Isam) and two women--one of them the sister of a notorious

thief named "Cutting Ball," and the mother of his illegitimate son,

Fortunatus Greene--he died on the 3rd of September 1592. Shortly before

his death he wrote under a bond for L10 which he had given to the good

shoemaker, the following words addressed to his long-forsaken wife:

"Doll, I charge thee, by the loue of our youth and by my soules rest,

that thou wilte see this man paide; for if hee and his wife had not

succoured me, I had died in the streetes.--Robert Greene."

_Four Letters and Certain Sonnets_, Harvey's attack on Greene, appeared

almost immediately after his death, as to the circumstances of which his

relentless adversary had taken care to inform himself personally. Nashe

took up the defence of his dead friend and ridiculed Harvey in _Strange

News_ (1593); and the dispute continued for some years. But, before this,

the dramatist Henry Chettle published a pamphlet from the hand of the

unhappy man, entitled _Greene's Groat's-worth of Wit bought with a

Million of Repentance_ (1592), containing the story of Roberto, who may

be regarded, for practical purposes, as representing Greene himself. This

ill-starred production may almost be said to have done more to excite the

resentment of posterity against Greene's name than all the errors for

which he professed his repentance. For in it he exhorted to repentance

three of his _quondam_ acquaintance. Of these three Marlowe was one--to

whom and to whose creation of "that Atheist Tamberlaine" he had

repeatedly alluded. The second was Peele, the third probably Nashe. But

the passage addressed to Peele contained a transparent allusion to a

fourth dramatist, who was an actor likewise, as "an vpstart crow

beautified with our feathers, that with his _Tygres heart wrapt in a

player's hyde_ supposes hee is as well able to bombast out a blanke-verse

as the best of you; and being an absolute Iohannes-fac-totum, is in his

owne conceyt the onely shake-scene in a countrey." The phrase italicized

parodies a passage occurring in _The True Tragedie of Richard, Duke of

York_, &c., and retained in Part III. of Henry VI. If Greene (as many

eminent critics have thought) had a hand in _The True Tragedie_, he must

here have intended a charge of plagiarism against Shakespeare. But while

it seems more probable that (as the late R. Simpson suggested) the

upstart crow beautified with the feathers of the three dramatists is a

sneering description of the actor who declaimed their verse, the _animus_

of the whole attack (as explained by Dr Ingleby) is revealed in its

concluding phrases. This "shake-scene," i.e. this _actor_ had ventured to

intrude upon the domain of the regular staff of playwrights--their

monopoly was in danger!

Two other prose pamphlets of an autobiographical nature were issued

posthumously. Of these, _The Repentance of Robert Greene, Master of

Arts_ (1592), must originally have been written by him on his death-bed,

under the influence, as he says, of Father Parsons's _Booke of

Resolution_ (_The Christian Directorie, appertayning to Resolution_,

1582, republished in an enlarged form, which became very popular, in

1585); but it bears traces of having been improved from the original;

while _Greene's Vision_ was certainly not, as the title-page avers,

written during his last illness.

Altogether not less than thirty-five prose-tracts are ascribed to

Greene's prolific pen. Nearly all of them are interspersed with verses;

in their themes they range from the "misticall" wonders of the heavens

to the familiar but "pernitious sleights" of the sharpers of London. But

the most widely attractive of his prose publications were his

"love-pamphlets," which brought upon him the outcry of Puritan censors.

The earliest of his novels, as they may be called, _Mamillia_, was

licensed in 1583. This interesting story may be said to have accompanied

Greene through life; for even part ii., of which, though probably

completed several years earlier, the earliest extant edition bears the

date 1593, had a sequel, _The Anatomie of Love's Flatteries_, which

contains a review of suitors recalling Portia's in _The Merchant of

Venice_. _The Myrrour of Modestie_ (the story of Susanna) (1584); _The

Historie of Arhasto, King of Denmarke_ (1584); _Morando, the Tritameron

of Love_ (a rather tedious imitation of the _Decameron_ (1584);

_Planetomachia_ (1585) (a contention in story-telling between Venus and

Saturn); _Penelope's Web_ (1587) (another string of stories); _Alcida_,

_Greene's Metamorphosis_ (1588), and others, followed. In these popular

productions he appears very distinctly as a follower of John Lyly;

indeed, the first part of _Mamillia_ was entered in the Stationers'

Registers in the year of the appearance of _Euphues_, and two of

Greene's novels are by their titles announced as a kind of sequel to the

parent romance: _Euphues his Censure to Philautus_ (1587), _Menaphon.

Camilla's Alarum to Slumbering Euphues_ (1589), named in some later

editions _Greene's Arcadia_. This pastoral romance, written in direct

emulation of Sidney's, with a heroine called Samila, contains St

Sephestia's charming lullaby, with its refrain "Father's sorowe,

father's joy." But, though Greene's style copies the balanced

oscillation, and his diction the ornateness (including the proverbial

philosophy) of Lyly, he contrives to interest by the matter as well as

to attract attention by the manner of his narratives. Of his highly

moral intentions he leaves the reader in no doubt, since they are

exposed on the title-pages. The full title of the _Myrrour of Modestie_

for instance continues: "wherein appeareth as in a perfect glasse how

the Lord delivereth the innocent from all imminent perils, and plagueth

the blood-thirsty hypocrites with deserved punishments," &c. On his

_Pandosto, The Triumph of Time_ (1588) Shakespeare founded _A Winter's

Tale_; in fact, the novel contains the entire plot of the comedy, except

the device of the living statue; though some of the subordinate

characters in the play, including Autolycus, were added by Shakespeare,

together with the pastoral fragrance of one of its episodes.

In Greene's _Never too Late_ (1590), announced as a "Powder of

Experience: sent to all youthfull gentlemen" for their benefit, the

hero, Francesco, is in all probability intended for Greene himself, the

sequel or second part is, however, pure fiction. This episodical

narrative has a vivacity and truthfulness of manner which savour of an

18th century novel rather than of an Elizabethan tale concerning the

days of "Palmerin, King of Great Britain." Philador, the prodigal of

_The Mourning Garment_ (1590), is obviously also in some respects a

portrait of the writer. The experiences of the Roberto of _Greene's

Groat's-worth of Wit_ (1592) are even more palpably the experiences of

the author himself, though they are possibly overdrawn--for a born

rhetorician exaggerates everything, even his own sins. Besides these and

the posthumous pamphlets on his repentance, Greene left realistic

pictures of the very disreputable society to which he finally descended,

in his pamphlets on "conny-catching": _A Notable Discovery of Coosnage_

(1591), _The Blacke Bookes Messenger, Laying open the Life and Death of

Ned Browne, one of the most Notable Cutpurses, Crossbiters, and

Conny-catchers that ever lived in England_ (1592). Much in Greene's

manner, both in his romances and in his pictures of low life,

anticipated what proved the slow course of the actual development of the

English novel; and it is probable that his true _metier_, and that which

best suited the bright fancy, ingenuity and wit of which his genius was

compounded, was pamphlet-spinning and story-telling rather than dramatic

composition. It should be added that, euphuist as Greene was, few of his

contemporaries in their lyrics warbled wood-notes which like his

resemble Shakespeare's in their native freshness.

Curiously enough, as Mr Churton Collins has pointed out, Greene, except

in the two pamphlets written just before his death, never refers to his

having written plays; and before 1592 his contemporaries are equally

silent as to his labours as a playwright. Only four plays remain to us

of which he was indisputably the sole author. The earliest of these

seems to have been the _Comicall History of Alphonsus, King of Arragon_,

of which Henslowe's _Diary_ contains no trace. But it can hardly have

been first acted long after the production of Marlowe's _Tamburlaine_,

which had, in all probability, been brought on the stage in 1587. For

this play, "comical" only in the negative sense of having a happy

ending, was manifestly written in emulation as well as in direct

imitation of Marlowe's tragedy. While Greene cannot have thought himself

capable of surpassing Marlowe as a tragic poet, he very probably wished

to outdo him in "business," and to equal him in the rant which was sure

to bring down at least part of the house. _Alphonsus_ is a _history_

proper--a dramatized chronicle or narrative of warlike events. Its fame

could never equal that of Marlowe's tragedy; but its composition showed

that Greene could seek to rival the most popular drama of the day,

without falling very far short of his model.

In the _Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay_ (not known

to have been acted before February, 1592, but probably written in 1589)

Greene once more attempted to emulate Marlowe; and he succeeded in

producing a masterpiece of his own. Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_, which

doubtless suggested the composition of Greene's comedy, reveals the

mighty tragic genius of its author; but Greene resolved on an altogether

distinct treatment of a cognate theme. Interweaving with the popular

tale of Friar Bacon and his wondrous doings a charming idyl (so far as

we know, of his own invention), the story of Prince Edward's love for

the Fair Maid of Fressingfield, he produced a comedy brimful of amusing

action and genial fun. _Friar Bacon_ remains a dramatic picture of

English Elizabethan life with which _The Merry Wives_ alone can vie; and

not even the ultra-classicism in the similes of its diction can destroy

the naturalness which constitutes its perennial charm. _The History of

Orlando Furioso, one of the Twelve Peeres of France_ has on

unsatisfactory evidence been dated as before 1586, and is known to have

been acted on the 21st of February 1592. It is a free dramatic

adaptation of Ariosto, Harington's translation of whom appeared in 1591,

and who in one passage is textually quoted; and it contains a large

variety of characters and a superabundance oi action. Fairly lucid in

arrangement and fluent in style, the treatment of the madness oi Orlando

lacks tragic power. Very few dramatists from Sophocles to Shakespeare

have succeeded in subordinating the grotesque effect of madness to the

tragic; and Greene is not to be included in the list.

In _The Scottish Historie of James IV._ (acted 1592, licensed for

publication 1594) Greene seems to have reached the climax of his

dramatic powers. The "historical" character of this play is pure

pretence. The story is taken from one of Giraldi Cinthio's tales. Its

theme is the illicit passion of King James for the chaste lady Ida, to

obtain whose hand he endeavours, at the suggestion of a villain called

Ateukin, to make away with his own wife. She escapes in doublet and

hose, attended by her faithful dwarf; but, on her father's making war

upon her husband to avenge her wrongs, she brings about a reconciliation

between them. Not only is this well-constructed story effectively worked

out, but the characters are vigorously drawn, and in Ateukin there is a

touch of Iago. The fooling by Slipper, the clown of the piece, is

unexceptionable; and, lest even so the play should hang heavy on the

audience, its action is carried off by a "pleasant comedie"--i.e. a

prelude and some dances between the acts--"presented by Oboram, King of

Fayeries," who is, however, a very different person from the Oberon of

_A Midsummer Night's Dream_.

_George-a-Greene the Pinner of Wakefield_ (acted 1593, printed 1599), a

delightful picture of English life fully worthy of the author of _Friar

Bungay_, has been attributed to him; but the external evidence is very

slight, and the internal unconvincing. Of the comedy of _Fair Em_, which

resembles _Friar Bacon_ in more than one point, Greene cannot have been

the author; the question as to the priority between the two plays is not

so easily solved. The conjecture as to his supposed share in the plays

on which the second and third parts of _Henry VI._ are founded has been

already referred to. He was certainly joint author with Thomas Lodge of

the curious drama called _A Looking Glasse for London and England_

(acted in 1592 and printed in 1594)--a dramatic apologue conveying to

the living generation of Englishmen the warning of Nineveh's corruption

and prophesied doom. The lesson was frequently repeated in the streets

of London by the "Ninevitical motions" of the puppets; but there are

both fire and wealth of language in Greene and Lodge's oratory. The

comic element is not absent, being supplied in abundance by Adam, the

clown of the piece, who belongs to the family of Slipper, and of Friar

Bacon's servant, Miles.

Greene's dramatic genius has nothing in it of the intensity of Marlowe's

tragic muse; nor perhaps does he ever equal Peele at his best. On the

other hand, his dramatic poetry is occasionally animated with the breezy

freshness which no artifice can simulate. He had considerable

constructive skill, but he has created no character of commanding

power--unless Ateukin be excepted; but his personages are living men and

women, and marked out from one another with a vigorous but far from rude

hand. His comic humour is undeniable, and he had the gift of light and

graceful dialogue. His diction is overloaded with classical ornament,

but his versification is easy and fluent, and its cadence is at times

singularly sweet. He creates his best effects by the simplest means; and

he is indisputably one of the most attractive of early English dramatic

authors.

Greene's dramatic works and poems were edited by Alexander Dyce in

1831 with a life of the author. This edition was reissued in one

volume in 1858. His complete works were edited for the Huth Library by

A. B. Grosart. This issue (1881-1886) contains a translation of

Nicholas Storojhenko's monograph on Greene (Moscow, 1878). Greene's

plays and poems were edited with introductions and notes by J. Churton

Collins in 2 vols. (Oxford, 1905); the general introduction to this

edition has superseded previous accounts of Greene and his dramatic

and lyrical writings. An account of his pamphlets is to be found in J.

J. Jusserand's _English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare_ (Eng.

trans., 1890). See also W. Bernhardi, _Robert Greenes Leben und

Schriften_ (1874); F. M. Bodenstedt, in _Shakespeare's Zeitgenossen

und ihre Werke_ (1858); and an introduction by A. W. Ward to _Friar

Bacon and Friar Bungay_ (Oxford, 1886, 4th ed., 1901). (A. W. W.)

GREENFIELD, a township and the county-seat of Franklin county, in N.E.

Massachusetts, U.S.A., including an area of 20 sq. m. of meadow and hill

country, watered by the Green and Deerfield rivers and various small

tributaries. Pop. (1890) 5252, (1900) 7927, of whom 1431 were

foreign-born; (1910 census) 10,427. The principal village, of the same

name as the township, is situated on the N. bank of the Deerfield river,

and on the Boston & Maine railway and the Connecticut Valley street

railway (electric). Among Greenfield's manufactures are cutlery,

machinery, and taps and dies. Greenfield, originally part of Deerfield,

was settled about 1682, was established as a "district" in 1753, and on

the 23rd of August 1775 was, by a general Act, separated from Deerfield

and incorporated as a separate township, although it had assumed full

township rights in 1774 by sending delegates to the Provincial Congress.

In 1793 part of it was taken to form the township of Gill; in 1838 part

of it was annexed to Bernardston; and in 1896 it annexed a part of

Deerfield. It was much disaffected at the time of Shays's Rebellion.

See F. M. Thompson, _History of Greenfield_ (2 vols., Greenfield,

1904).

GREENFINCH (Ger. _Grunfink_), or GREEN LINNET, as it is very often

called, a common European bird, the _Fringilla chloris_ of Linnaeus,

ranked by many systematists with one section of hawfinches,

_Coccothraustes_, but apparently more nearly allied to the other section

_Hesperiphona_, and perhaps justifiably deemed the type of a distinct

genus, to which the name _Chloris_ or _Ligurinus_ has been applied. The

cock, in his plumage of yellowish-green and yellow is one of the most

finely coloured of common English birds, but he is rather heavily built,

and his song is hardly commended. The hen is much less brightly tinted.

Throughout Britain, as a rule, this species is one of the most plentiful

birds, and is found at all seasons of the year. It pervades almost the

whole of Europe, and in Asia reaches the river Ob. It visits Palestine,

but is unknown in Egypt. It is, however, abundant in Mauritania, whence

specimens are so brightly coloured that they have been deemed to form a

distinct species, the _Ligurinus aurantiiventris_ of Dr Cabanis, but

that view is now generally abandoned. In the north-east of Asia and its

adjacent islands occur two allied species--the _Fringilla sinica_ of

Linnaeus and the _F. kawarahiba_ of Temminck. (A. N.)

GREENHEART, one of the most valuable of timbers, the produce of

_Nectandra Rodiaei_, natural order Lauraceae, a large tree, native of

tropical South America and the West Indies. The Indian name of the tree

is _sipiri_ or _bibiru_, and from its bark and fruits is obtained the

febrifuge principle bibirine. Greenheart wood is of a dark-green colour,

sap wood and heart wood being so much alike that they can with difficulty

be distinguished from each other. The heart wood is one of the most

durable of all timbers, and its value is greatly enhanced by the fact

that it is proof against the ravages of many marine borers which rapidly

destroy piles and other submarine structures of most other kinds of wood

available for such purposes. In the Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow, there

are two pieces of planking from a wreck submerged during eighteen years

on the west coast of Scotland. The one specimen--greenheart--is merely

slightly pitted on the surface, the body of the wood being perfectly

sound and untouched, while the other--teak--is almost entirely eaten

away. Greenheart, tested either by transverse or by tensile strain, is

one of the strongest of all woods, and it is also exceedingly dense, its

specific gravity being about 1150. It is included in the second line of

Lloyd's Register for shipbuilding purposes, and it is extensively used

for keelsons, beams, engine-bearers and planking, &c., as well as in the

general engineering arts, but its excessive weight unfits it for many

purposes for which its other properties would render it eminently

suitable.

GREENLAND (Danish, &c., _Gronland_), a large continental island, the

greater portion of which lies within the Arctic Circle, while the whole

is arctic in character. It is not connected with any portion of Europe

or America except by suboceanic ridges; but in the extreme north it is

separated only by a narrow strait from Ellesmere Land in the archipelago

of the American continent. It is bounded on the east by the North

Atlantic, the Norwegian and Greenland Seas--Jan Mayen, Iceland, the

Faeroe Islands and the Shetlands being the only lands between it and

Norway. Denmark Strait is the sea between it and Iceland, and the

northern Norwegian Sea or Greenland Sea separates it from Spitsbergen.

On the west Davis Strait and Baffin Bay separate it from Baffin Land.

The so-called bay narrows northward into the strait successively known

as Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel and Robeson Channel. A

submarine ridge, about 300 fathoms deep at its deepest, unites Greenland

with Iceland (across Denmark Strait), the Faeroes and Scotland. A

similar submarine ridge unites it with the Cumberland Peninsula of

Baffin Land, across Davis Strait. Two large islands (with others

smaller) lie probably off the north coast, being apparently divided from

it by very narrow channels which are not yet explored. If they be

reckoned as integral parts of Greenland, then the north coast, fronting

the polar sea, culminates about 83 deg. 40' N. Cape Farewell, the most

southerly point (also on a small island), is in 59 deg. 45' N. The

extreme length of Greenland may therefore be set down at about 1650 m.,

while its extreme breadth, which occurs about 77 deg. 30' N., is

approximately 800 m. The area is estimated at 827,275 sq. m. 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 southern and south-western coasts have been known, as will be

mentioned later, since the 10th century, when Norse settlers appeared

there, and the names of many famous arctic explorers have been

associated with the exploration of Greenland. The communication between

the Norse settlements in Greenland and the motherland Norway was broken

off at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, and

the Norsemen's knowledge about their distant colony was gradually more

or less forgotten. The south and west coast of Greenland was then

re-discovered by John Davis in July 1585, though previous explorers, as

Cortereal, Frobisher and others, had seen it, and at the end of the 16th

and the beginning of the 17th century the work of Davis (1586-1588).

Hudson (1610) and Baffin (1616) in the western seas afforded some

knowledge of the west coast. This was added to by later explorers and by

whalers and sealers. Among explorers who in the 19th century were

specially connected with the north-west coast may be mentioned E. A.

Inglefield (1852) who sailed into Smith's Sound,[1] Elisha Kent Kane

(1853-1855)[2] who worked northward through Smith Sound into Kane Basin,

and Charles Francis Hall (1871) who explored the strait (Kennedy Channel

and Robeson Channel) to the north of this.[3]

The northern east coast was sighted by Hudson (1607) in about 73 deg.

30' N. (C. Hold with Hope), and during the 17th century and later this

northern coast was probably visited by many Dutch whalers. The first who

gave more accurate information was the Scottish whaler, Captain William

Scoresby, jun. (1822), who, with his father, explored the coast between

69 deg. and 75 deg. N., and gave the first fairly trustworthy map of

it.[4] Captains Edward Sabine and Clavering (1823) visited the coast

between 72 deg. 5' and 75 deg. 12' N. and met the only Eskimo ever seen

in this part of Greenland. The second German polar expedition in 1870,

under Carl Christian Koldewey[5] (1837-1908), reached 77 deg. N. (Cape

Bismarck); and the duke of Orleans, in 1905, ascertained that this point

was on an island (the Dove Bay of the German expedition being in reality

a strait) and penetrated farther north, to about 78 deg. 16'. From this

point the north-east coast remained unexplored, though a sight was

reported in 1670 by a whaler named Lambert, and again in 1775 as far

north as 79 deg. by Daines Barrington, until a Danish expedition under

Mylius Erichsen in 1906-1908 explored it, discovering North-East

Foreland, the easternmost point (see Polar Regions and map). The

southern part of the east coast was first explored by the Dane Wilhelm

August Graah (1829-1830) between Cape Farewell and 65 deg. 16' N.[6] In

1883-1885 the Danes G. Holm and T. V. Garde carefully explored and

mapped the coast from Cape Farewell to Angmagssalik, in 66 deg. N.[7] F.

Nansen and his companions also travelled along a part of this coast in

1888.[8] A. E. Nordenskiold, in the "Sophia," landed near Angmagssalik,

in 65 deg. 36' N., in 1883.[9] Captain C. Ryder, in 1891-1892, explored

and mapped the large Scoresby Sound, or, more correctly, Scoresby

Fjord.[10] Lieutenant G. Amdrup, in 1899, explored the coast from

Angmagssalik north to 67 deg. 22' N.[11] A part of this coast, about 67

deg. N., had also been seen by Nansen in 1882.[12] In 1899 Professor A.

G. Nathorst explored the land between Franz Josef Fjord and Scoresby

Fjord, where the large King Oscar Fjord, connecting Davy's Sound with

Franz Joseph Fjord, was discovered.[13] In 1900 Lieutenant Amdrup

explored the still unknown east coast from 690 10' N. south to 67 deg.

N.[14]

From the work of explorers in the north-west it had been possible to

infer the approximate latitude of the northward termination of Greenland

long before it was definitely known. Towards the close of the 19th

century several explorers gave attention to this question. Lieutenant

(afterwards Admiral) L. A. Beaumont (1876), of the Nares Expedition,

explored the coast north-east of Robeson Channel to 82 deg. 20' N.[15]

In 1882 Lieut. J. B. Lockwood and Sergeant (afterwards Captain) D. L.

Brainard, of the U.S. expedition to Lady Franklin Bay,[16] explored the

north-west coast beyond Beaumont's farthest to a promontory in 83 deg.

24' N. and 40 deg. 46' E. and they saw to the north-east Cape

Washington, in about 83 deg. 38' N. and 39 deg. 30' E., the most

northerly point of land till then observed. In July 1892 R. E. Peary and

E. Astrup, crossing by land from Inglefield Gulf, Smith Sound,

discovered Independence Bay on the north-east coast in 81 deg. 37' N.

and 34 deg. 5' W.[17] In May 1895 it was revisited by Peary, who

supposed this bay to be a sound communicating with Victoria Inlet on the

north-west coast. To the north Heilprin Land and Melville Land were seen

stretching northwards, but the probability seemed to be that the coast

soon trended north-west. In 1901 Peary rounded the north point, and

penetrated as far north as 83 deg. 50' N. The scanty exploration of the

great ice-cap, or inland ice, which may be asserted to cover the whole

of the interior of Greenland, has been prosecuted chiefly from the west

coast. In 1751 Lars Dalager, a Danish trader, took some steps in this

direction from Frederikshaab. In 1870 Nordenskiold and Berggren walked

35 m. inland from the head of Aulatsivik Fjord (near Disco Bay) to an

elevation of 2200 ft. The Danish captain Jens Arnold Dietrich Jensen

reached, in 1878, the Jensen Nunataks (5400 ft. above the sea), about 45

m. from the western margin, in 62 deg. 50' N.[18] Nordenskiold

penetrated in 1883 about 70 m. inland in 68 deg. 20' N., and two Lapps

of his expedition went still farther on skis, to a point nearly under 45

deg. W. at an elevation of 6600 ft. Peary and Maigaard reached in 1886

about 100 m. inland, a height of 7500 ft. in 69 deg. 30' N. Nansen with

five companions in 1888 made the first complete crossing of the inland

ice, working from the east coast to the west, about 64 deg. 25' N., and

reached a height of 8922 ft. Peary and Astrup, as already indicated,

crossed in 1892 the northern part of the inland ice between 78 deg. and

82 deg. N., reaching a height of about 8000 ft., and determined the

northern termination of the ice-covering. Peary made very nearly the

same journey again in 1895. Captain T. V. Garde explored in 1893 the

interior of the inland ice between 61 deg. and 62 deg. N. near its

southern termination, and he reached a height of 7080 ft. about 60 m.

from the margin.[19]

[Illustration: Map of Greenland.]

_Coasts._--The coasts of Greenland are for the most part deeply

indented with fjords, being intensely glaciated. The coast-line of

Melville Bay (the northern part of the west coast) is to some degree

an exception, though the fjords may here be somewhat filled with

glaciers, and, for another example, it may be noted that Peary

observed a marked contrast on the north coast. Eastward as far as Cape

Morris Jesup there are precipitous headlands and islands, as

elsewhere, with deep water close inshore. East of the same cape there

is an abrupt change; the coast is unbroken, the mountains recede

inland, and there is shoal-water for a considerable distance from the

coast. Numerous islands lie off the coasts where they are indented;

but these are in no case large, excepting those off the north coast,

and that of Disco off the west, which is crossed by the parallel of

70 deg. N. This island, which is separated by Waigat Strait from the

Nugsuak peninsula, is lofty, and has an area of 3005 sq. m. Steenstrup

in 1898 discovered in it the warmest spring known in Greenland, having

a temperature of 66 deg. F.

The unusual glaciation of the east coast is evidently owing to the

north polar current carrying the ice masses from the north polar basin

south-westward along the land, and giving it an entirely arctic

climate down to Cape Farewell. In some parts the interior ice-covering

extends down to the outer coast, while in other parts its margin is

situated more inland, and the ice-bare coast-land is deeply

intersected by fjords extending far into the interior, where they are

blocked by enormous glaciers or "ice-currents" from the interior

ice-covering which discharge masses of icebergs into them. The east

coast of Greenland is in this respect highly interesting. All coasts

in the world which are much intersected by deep fjords have, with very

few exceptions, a western exposure, e.g. 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. 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. Scoresby Fjord has a

length of about 180 m. from the outer coast to the point where it is

blocked by the glaciers, and with its numerous branches covers an

enormous area. Franz Josef Fjord, with its branch King Oscar Fjord,

communicating with Davy's Sound, forms a system of fjords on a similar

scale. These fjords are very deep; the greatest depth found by Ryder

in Scoresby Sound was 300 fathoms, but there are certainly still

greater depths; like the Norwegian fjords they have, however, probably

all of them, a threshold or sill, with shallow water, near their

mouths. A few soundings made outside this coast seem to indicate that

the fjords continue as deep submarine valleys far out into the sea. On

the west coast there are also many great fjords. One of the best known

from earlier days is the great Godthaab Fjord (or Baals Revier) north

of 64 deg. N. Along the east coast there are many high mountains,

exceeding 6000 and 7000 ft. in height. One of the highest peaks

hitherto measured is at Tiningnertok, on the Lindenov Fjord, in 60

deg. 35' N., which is 7340 ft. high. At the bottom of Mogens Heinesen

Fjord, 62 deg. 30' N., the peaks are 6300 ft., and in the region of

Umanak, 63 deg. 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 deg. 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 deg. 20' N., about 6000 ft., which is seen from far out

at sea, and forms an excellent landmark. This is probably the Blaaserk

(i.e. Blue Sark or blue shirt) of the old Norsemen, their first

landmark on their way from Iceland to the Oster Bygd, the present

Julianehaab district, on the south-west coast of Greenland. A little

farther north the coast is much lower, rising only to heights of 2000

ft., and just north of 67 deg. 10' N. only to 500 ft. or less.[20] The

highest mountains near the inner branches of Scoresby Fjord are about

7000 ft. The Petermann Spitze, near the shore of Franz Josef Fjord,

measured by Payer and found to be 11,000 ft., has hitherto been

considered to be the highest mountain in Greenland, but according to

Nathorst it "is probably only two-thirds as high as Payer supposed,"

perhaps between 8000 and 9000 ft.

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 Inland Ice._--The whole interior of Greenland is completely

covered by the so-called inland ice, an enormous glacier forming a

regular shield-shaped expanse of snow and glacier ice, and burying all

valleys and mountains far below its surface. Its area is about 715,400

sq. m., and it is by far the greatest glacier of the northern

hemisphere. Only occasionally there emerge lofty rocks, isolated but

not completely covered by the ice-cap; such rocks are known as

_nunataks_ (an Eskimo word). The inland ice rises in the interior to a

level of 9000, and in places perhaps 10,000 ft. or more, and descends

gradually by extremely gentle slopes towards the coasts or the bottom

of the fjords on all sides, discharging a great part of its yearly

drainage or surplus of precipitation in the form of icebergs in the

fjords, the so-called ice-fjords, which are numerous both on the west

and on the east coast. These icebergs float away, and are gradually

melted in the sea, the temperature of which is thus lowered by cold

stored up in the interior of Greenland. The last remains of these

icebergs are met with in the Atlantic south of Newfoundland. The

surface of the inland ice forms in a transverse section from the west

to the east coast an extremely regular curve, almost approaching an

arc of a wide circle, which along Nansen's route has its highest ridge

somewhat nearer the east than the west coast. The same also seems to

be the case farther south. The curve shows, however, slight

irregularities in the shape of undulations. The angle of the slope

decreases gradually from the margin of the inland ice, where it may be

1 deg. or more, towards the interior, where it is 0 deg. In the

interior the surface of the inland ice is composed of dry snow which

never melts, and is constantly packed and worked smooth by the winds.

It extends as a completely even plain of snow, with long, almost

imperceptible, undulations or waves, at a height of 7000 to 10,000

ft., obliterating the features of the underlying land, the mountains

and valleys of which are completely interred. Over the deepest valleys

of the land in the interior this ice-cap must be at least 6000 or 7000

ft. thick or more. Approaching the coasts from the interior, the snow

of the surface gradually changes its structure. At first it becomes

more coarse-grained, like the _Firn Schnee_ of the Alps, and is moist

by melting during the summer. Nearer the coast, where the melting on

the surface is more considerable, the wet snow freezes hard during the

winter and is more or less transformed into ice, on the surface of

which rivers and lakes are formed, the water of which, however, soon

finds its way through crevasses and holes in the ice down to its under

surface, and reaches the sea as a sub-glacial river. Near its margin

the surface of the inland ice is broken up by numerous large

crevasses, formed by the outward motion of the glacier covering the

underlying land. The steep ice-walls at the margin of the inland ice

show, especially where the motion of the ice is slow, a distinct

striation, which indicates the strata of annual precipitation with the

intervening thin seams of dust (Nordenskiold's kryokonite). This is

partly dust blown on to the surface of the ice from the ice-bare

coast-land and partly the dust of the atmosphere brought down by the

falling snow and accumulated on the surface of the glacier's covering

by the melting during the summer. In the rapidly moving glaciers of

the ice-fjords this striation is not distinctly visible, being

evidently obliterated by the strong motion of the ice masses.

The ice-cap of Greenland must to some extent be considered as a

viscous mass, which, by the vertical pressure in its interior, is

pressed outwards and slowly flows towards the coasts, just as a mass

of pitch placed on a table and left to itself will in the course of

time flow outwards towards all sides. 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.

Here the ice converges into the valleys and moves with increasing

velocity in the form of glaciers into the fjords, where they break off

as icebergs. The drainage of the interior of Greenland is thus partly

given off in the solid form of icebergs, partly by the melting of the

snow and ice on the surface of the ice-cap, especially near its

western margin, and to some slight extent also by the melting produced

on its under side by the interior heat of the earth. After Professor

Amund Helland had, in July 1875, discovered the amazingly great

velocity, up to 64-3/4 ft. in twenty-four hours, with which the

glaciers of Greenland move into the sea, the margin of the inland ice

and its glaciers was studied by several expeditions. K. J. V.

Steenstrup during several years, Captain Hammer in 1879-1880, Captain

Ryder in 1886-1887, Dr Drygalski in 1891-1893,[21] and several

American expeditions in later years, all examined the question

closely. The highest known velocities of glaciers were measured by

Ryder in the Upernivik glacier (in 73 deg. 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. in April 1887. There seem to be

periodical oscillations in the extension of the glaciers and the

inland ice similar to those that have been observed on the glaciers of

the Alps and elsewhere. But these interesting phenomena have not

hitherto been subject to systematic observation, and our knowledge of

them is therefore uncertain. Numerous glacial marks, however, such as

polished striated rocks, moraines, erratic blocks, &c., prove that the

whole of Greenland, even the small islands and skerries outside the

coast, has once been covered by the inland ice.

Numerous raised beaches and terraces, containing shells of marine

mollusca, &c., occur along the whole coast of Greenland, and indicate

that the whole of this large island has been raised, or the sea has

sunk, in post-glacial times, after the inland ice covered its now

ice-bare outskirts. 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 deg.

20' N.) the highest terrace is 480 ft. above the sea.[23] On Manitsok

(65 deg. 30' N.) the highest raised beach was 360 ft. above the

sea.[24] In the Isortok Fjord (67 deg. 11' N.) the highest raised

beach is 380 ft. above sea-level.[25] In the Ameralik Fjord (64 deg.

14' N.) the highest marine terrace is about 340 ft. above sea-level,

and at Ilivertalik (63 deg. 14' N.), north of Fiskernaes, the highest

terrace is about 325 ft. above the sea. At Kakarsuak, near the

Bjornesund (62 deg. 50' N.), a terrace is found at 615 ft. above the

sea, but it is doubtful whether this is of marine origin.[26] In the

Julianehaab district, between 60 deg. and 61 deg. N., the highest

marine terraces are found at about 160 ft. above the sea.[27] The

highest marine terrace observed in Scoresby Fjord, on the east coast,

was 240 ft. above sea-level.[28] There is a common belief that during

quite recent times the west and south-west coast, within the Danish

possessions, has been sinking. Although there are many indications

which may make this probable, none of them can be said to be quite

decisive.[29]

[_Geology._--So far as made out, the structure of explored Greenland

is as follows:

1. _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. 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.

2. _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. It is, however, likely

that this formation occurs in Greenland, for in Dana Bay, Captain

Feilden found a species of _Spirifera_ and _Productus mesolobus_ or

_costatus_, though it is possible that these fossils represent the

"Ursa stage" (Heer) of the Lower Carboniferous. A few Devonian forms

have also been recorded from the Parry Archipelago, and Nathorst has

shown the existence of Old Red Sandstone facies of Devonian in Traill

Island, Geographical Society Island, Ymer Island and Gauss Peninsula.

4. _Carboniferous._--In erratic blocks of sandstone, found on the

Disco shore of the Waigat have been detected a _Sigillaria_ and a

species of either _Pecopteris_ or _Gleichenia_, perhaps of this age;

and probably much of the extreme northern coast of Ellesmere Land, and

therefore, in all likelihood, the opposite Greenland shore, contains a

clearly developed Carboniferous Limestone fauna, identical with that

so widely distributed over the North American continent, and referable

also to British and Spitsbergen species. Of the Coal Measures above

these, if they occur, we know nothing at present. Capt. Feilden notes

as suggestive that, though the explorers have not met with this

formation on the northern shores of Greenland, yet it was observed

that a continuation of the direction of the known strike of the

limestones of Feilden peninsula, carried over the polar area, passes

through the neighbourhood of Spitsbergen, where the formation occurs,

and contains certain species identical with those of the Grinnell Land

rocks of this horizon. 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.

5. _Jurassic._--These do not occur on the west coast, but on the east

coast the German expedition discovered marls and sandstones on Kuhn

Island, resembling those of the Russian Jurassic, characterized by the

presence of the genus _Aucella_, _Olcostephanus Payeri_, _O.

striolaris_, _Belemnites Panderianus_, _B. volgensis_, _B. absolutus_,

and a _Cyprina_ near to _C. syssolae_. On the south coast of the same

island are coarse-grained, brownish micaceous and light-coloured

calcareous sandstone and marls, containing fossils, which render it

probable that they are of the same age as the coal-bearing Jurassic

rocks of Brora (Scotland) and the Middle Dogger of Yorkshire. There is

also coal on Kuhn Island.

The Danish expeditions of 1899-1900 have added considerably to our

knowledge of the Jurassic rocks of East Greenland. Rhaetic-Lias plants

have been described by Dr Hartz from Cape Stewart and Vardekloft. Dr

Madsen has recognized fossils that correspond with those from the

Inferior oolite, Cornbrash and Callovian of England. Upper Kimmeridge

and Portlandian beds also occur.

6. _Cretaceous._--Beds of this age, consisting of sandstones and coal,

are found on the northern coast of Disco Island and the southern side

of the Noursoak Peninsula, the beds in the former locality, "the Kome

strata" of Nordenskiold, being the oldest. They reach 1000 ft. in

thickness, occupying undulating hollows in the underlying gneiss, and

dip towards the Noursoak Peninsula at 20 deg., when the overlying

Atanakerdluk strata come in. Both these series contain numerous plant

remains, evergreen oaks, magnolias, aralias, &c., and seams of lignite

(coal), which is burnt; but in neither occur the marine beds of the

United States. Still, the presence of dicotyledonous leaves, such as

_Magnolia alternans_, in the Atanakerdluk strata, proves their close

alliance with the Dakota series of the United States. The underlying

Kome beds are not present in the American series. They are

characterized by fine cycads (_Zamites arcticus_ and _Glossozamites

Hoheneggeri_), which also occur in the Urgonian strata of Wernsdorff.

7. _Miocene._--This formation, one of the most widely spread in polar

lands, though the most local in Greenland, is also the best known

feature in its geology. It is limited to Disco Island, and perhaps to

a small part of the Noursoak Peninsula, and the neighbouring country,

and consists of numerous thin beds of sandstone, shale and coal--the

sideritic shale containing immense quantities of leaves, stems, fruit,

&c., as well as some insects, and the coal pieces of retinite. The

study of these plant and insect remains shows that forests containing

a vegetation very similar to that of California and the southern

United States, in some instances even the species of trees being all

but identical, flourished in 70 deg. N. during geological periods

comparatively recent. These beds, as well as the Cretaceous series,

from which they are as yet only imperfectly distinguished, are

associated with sheets of basalt, which penetrate them in great dikes,

and in some places, owing to the wearing away of the softer

sedimentary rocks, stand out in long walls running across the beds.

These Miocene strata have not been found farther north on the

Greenland shore than the region mentioned; but in Lady Franklin Bay,

on the Grinnell Land side of Smith Sound, they again appear, so that

the chances are they will be found on the opposite coast, though

doubtless the great disintegration Greenland has undergone and is

undergoing has destroyed many of the softer beds of fossiliferous

rocks. On the east coast, more particularly in Hochstetter Foreland,

the Miocene beds again appear, and we may add that there are traces of

them even on the west coast, between Sonntag Bay and Foulke Fjord, at

the entrance to Smith Sound. It thus appears that since early Tertiary

times there has been a great change in the climate of Greenland.

Nathorst has suggested that the whole of Greenland is a "horst," in

the subordinate folds of which, as well as in the deeper "graben," the

younger rocks are preserved, often with a covering of Tertiary or

later lava flows.[30]--J. A. H.]

_Minerals._--Native iron was found by Nordenskiold at Ovifak, on Disco

Island, in 1870, and brought to Sweden (1871) as meteorites. The

heaviest nodule weighed over 20 tons. Similar native iron has later

been found by K. J. V. Steenstrup in several places on the west coast

enclosed as smaller or larger nodules in the basalt. This iron has

very often beautiful Widmannstatten figures like those of iron

meteorites, but it is obviously of telluric origin.[31] In 1895 Peary

found native iron at Cape York; since John Ross's voyage in 1818 it

has been known to exist there, and from it the Eskimo got iron for

their weapons. In 1897 Peary brought the largest nodule to New York;

it was estimated to weigh nearly 100 tons. This iron is considered by

several of the first authorities on the subject to be of meteoric

origin,[32] but no evidence hitherto given seems to prove decisively

that it cannot be telluric. 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 Nordenskiold at

Ovifak, but appears to resemble much more closely the softer kind of

iron nodules found by Steenstrup in the basalt;[33] it stands exposure

to the air equally well, and has similar Widmannstatten figures very

sharp, as is to be expected in such a large mass. It contains,

however, more nickel and also phosphorus. A few other minerals may be

noticed, and some have been worked to a small extent--graphite is

abundant, particularly near Upernivik; cryolite is found almost

exclusively at Ivigtut; copper has been observed at several places,

but only in nodules and laminae of limited extent; and coal of poor

quality is found in the districts about Disco Bay and Umanak Fjord.

Steatite or soapstone has long been used by the natives for the

manufacture of lamps and vessels.

_Climate._--The climate is very uncertain, the weather changing

suddenly from bright sunshine (when mosquitoes often swarm) to dense

fog or heavy falls of snow and icy winds. At Julianehaab in the

extreme south-west the winter is not much colder than that of Norway

and Sweden in the same locality; but its mean temperature for the

whole year probably approximates to that on the Norwegian coast 600 m.

farther north. The climate of the interior has been found to be of a

continental character, with large ranges of temperature, and with an

almost permanent anti-cyclonic region over the interior of the inland

ice, from which the prevailing winds radiate towards the coasts. On

the 64th parallel the mean annual temperature at an elevation of 6560

ft. is supposed to be -13 deg. F., or reduced to sea-level 5 deg. F.

The mean annual temperature in the interior farther north is supposed

to be -10 deg. F. reduced to sea-level. The mean temperature of the

warmest month, July, in the interior should be, reduced to sea-level,

on the 64th parallel 32 deg. F., and that of the coldest month,

January, about -22 deg. F., while in North Greenland it is probably

-40 deg. reduced to sea-level. Here we may probably find the lowest

temperatures of the northern hemisphere. The interior of Greenland

contains both summer and winter a pole of cold, situated in the

opposite longitude to that of Siberia, with which it is well able to

compete in extreme severity. On Nansen's expedition temperatures of

about -49 deg. F. were experienced during the nights in the beginning

of September, and the minimum during the winter may probably sink to

-90 deg. F. in the interior of the inland ice. These low temperatures

are evidently caused by the radiation of heat from the snow-surface in

the rarefied air in the interior. The daily range of temperature is

therefore very considerable, sometimes amounting to 40 deg. Such a

range is elsewhere found only in deserts, but the surface of the

inland ice may be considered to be an elevated desert of snow.[34] 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 _fohn_-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.[36] Mirage and similar phenomena and

the aurora are common.

_Fauna and Flora._--It was long a common belief that the fauna and

flora of Greenland were essentially European, a circumstance which

would make it probable that Greenland has been separated by sea from

America during a longer period of time than from Europe. The

correctness of this hypothesis may, however, be doubted. 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

species of seals and whales are, if anything, more American than

European, and so to some extent are the fishes. The bladder-nose seal

(_Cystophora cristata_), for instance, may be said to be a

Greenland-American species, while a Scandinavian species, such as the

grey seal (_Halichoerus grypus_), appears to be very rare both in

Greenland and America. Of the sixty-one species of birds breeding in

Greenland, eight are European-Asiatic, four are American, and the rest

circumpolar or North Atlantic and North Pacific in their

distribution.[37] 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.[38]

In the south, a few goats, sheep, oxen and pigs have been introduced.

The whaling industry was formerly prolific off the west coast but

decayed when the right whale nearly disappeared. The white whale

fishery of the Eskimo, however, continued, and sealing is important;

walruses are also caught and sometimes narwhal. There are also

important fisheries for cod, caplin, halibut, red fish (_Sebastes_)

and _nepisak_ (_Cyclopterus lumpus_); a shark (_Somniosus

microcephalus_) is taken for the oil from its liver; and sea-trout are

found in the streams and small lakes of the south. On land reindeer

were formerly hunted, to their practical extinction in the south, but

in the districts of Godthaab, Sukkertoppen and Holstensborg there are

still many reindeer. The eider-duck, guillemot and other sea-birds are

in some parts valuable for food in winter, and so is the ptarmigan.

Eggs of sea-birds are collected and eider-down. Valuable fur is

obtained from the white and blue fox, the skin of the eider-duck and

the polar bear.

At Tasiusak (73 deg. 22' N.), the most northern civilized settlement

in the world, gardening has been attempted without success, but

several plants do well in forcing frames. At Umanak (70 deg. 40' N.)

is the most northern garden in the world. Broccoli and radishes grow

well, turnips (but not every year), lettuce and chervil succeed

sometimes, but parsley cannot be reared. At Jacobshavn (69 deg. 12'

N.), only some 15 m. from the inland ice, gardening succeeds very

well; broccoli and lettuce grow willingly; the spinach produces large

leaves; chervil, pepper-grass, leeks, parsley and turnips grow very

well; the radishes are sown and gathered twice during the summer (June

to August). In the south, in the Julianehaab district, even flowering

plants, such as aster, nemophilia and mignonette, are cultivated, and

broccoli, spinach, sorrel, chervil, parsley, rhubarb, turnips,

lettuce, radishes grow well. Potatoes give fair results when they are

taken good care of, carrots grow to a thickness of 1-1/2 in., while

cabbage does poorly. Strawberries and cucumbers have been ripened in a

forcing frame. In the "Kongespeil" (King's mirror) of the 13th century

it is stated that the old Norsemen tried in vain to raise barley.

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. Forest there is none in all the country. In the north, where

the lichen-covered or ice-shaven rocks do not protrude, the ground is

covered with a carpet of mosses, creeping dwarf willows, crow-berries

and similar plants, while the flowers most common are the andromeda,

the yellow poppy, pedicularis, pyrola, &c. besides the flowering

mosses; but in South Greenland there is something in the shape of

bush, the dwarf birches even rising a few feet in very sheltered

places, the willows may grow higher than a man, and the vegetation is

less arctic and more abundant.

_Government and Trade._--The trade of Greenland is a monopoly of the

Danish crown, dating from 1774, and is administered in Copenhagen by a

government board (_Kongelige Gronlandske Handel_) and in the country by

various government officials. In order to meet the double purposes of

government and trade the west coast, up to nearly 74 deg. N., is divided

into two inspectorates, the southern extending to 67 deg. 40' N., the

northern comprising the rest of the country; the respective seats of

government being at Godthaab and Godhavn. These inspectorates are ruled

by two superior officials or governors responsible to the director of

the board in Copenhagen. Each of the inspectorates is divided into

districts, each district having, in addition to the chief settlement or

_coloni_, several outlying posts and Eskimo hunting stations, each

presided over by an _udligger_, who is responsible to the

_coloni-bestyrer_, or superintendent of the district. These trading

settlements, which dot the coast for a distance of 1000 m., are about

sixty in number. From the Eskimo hunting and fishing stations blubber is

the chief article received, and is forwarded in casks to the _coloni_,

where it is boiled into oil, and prepared for being despatched to

Copenhagen by means of the government ships which arrive and leave

between May and November. For the rest of the year navigation is

stopped, though the winter months form the busy seal-killing season. 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 addition the Greenlanders are allowed to order goods from

private dealers on paying freight for them at the rate of 2-1/2d. per 10

lb., or 1s. 6d. per cub. ft. The prices to be paid for European and

native articles are fixed every year, the prices current in Danish and

Eskimo being printed and distributed by the government. Out of the

payment five-sixths are given to the sellers, and one-sixth devoted to

the Greenlanders' public fund, spent in "public works," in charity, and

on other unforeseen contingencies. 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 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. To these parish

parliaments delegates are sent from every station. These _parsissoks_,

elected at the rate of about one representative to 120 voters, wear a

cap with a badge (a bear rampant), and aid the European members of the

council in distributing the surplus profit apportioned to each district,

and generally in advising as to the welfare of that part of Greenland

under their partial control. The municipal council has the disposal of

20% of the annual profits made on produce purchased within the confines

of each district. It holds two sessions every year, and the discussions

are entirely in the Eskimo language. 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.

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 Danish residents

may include, besides a _coloni-bestyrer_ and his assistant, a

_missionair_ or clergyman, at a few places also a doctor, and perhaps a

carpenter and a schoolmaster. 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 _Oster-Bygd_);

Frederikshaab, in which district are the cryolite mines of Ivigtut;

Godthaab, the principal settlement of all, in the neighbourhood of which

are also early Norse remains (the _Vester-Bygd_); Sukkertoppen, a most

picturesque locality; and Holstenborg. In the north inspectorate the

centres are: Egedesminde, on an islet at the mouth of Disco Bay;

Christianshaab, one of the pleasantest settlements in the north, and

Jacobshavn, on the inner shores of the same bay; Godhavn (or Lievely) on

the south coast of Disco Island, formerly an important seat of the

whaling industry; Ritenbenk, Umanak, and, most northerly of all,

Upernivik. On the east coast there is but one coloni, Angmagssalik, in

65 deg. 30' N., only established in 1894. For ecclesiastical purposes

Danish Greenland is reckoned in the province of the bishop of Zeeland.

The Danish mission in Greenland has a yearly grant of L2000 from the

trading revenue of the colony, besides a contribution of L880 from the

state. The Moravian mission, which had worked in Greenland for a century

and a half, retired from the country in 1900. The trade of Greenland has

on the whole much decreased in modern times, and trading and missions

cost the Danish state a comparatively large sum (about L11,000 every

year), although this is partly covered by the income from the royalty of

the cryolite mines at Ivigtut. There is, however, a yearly deficiency of

more than L6000. 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. The average number of seals killed annually is about

33,000.[39] The annual value of imports, consisting of manufactured

goods, foodstuffs, &c., may be taken somewhat to exceed L40,000. The

chief articles of export (together with those that have lapsed) have

been already indicated; but they may be summarized as including

seal-oil, seal, fox, bird and bear skins, fish products and eiderdown,

with some quantity of worked skins. 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. Hans Egede

estimated the population then at 30,000, but this is probably a large

over-estimate. 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. The population fluctuates a good deal, owing, to some

extent, to an immigration of natives from the east to the west coast.

The population of the east coast seems on the whole to be decreasing in

number, several hundreds chiefly living at Angmagssalik. In the north

part of the east coast, in the region of Scoresby Fjord and Franz Josef

Fjord, numerous ruins of Eskimo settlements are found, and in 1823

Clavering met Eskimo there, but now they have either completely died out

or have wandered south. A little tribe of Eskimo living in the region of

Cape York near Smith Sound--the so-called "Arctic Highlanders" or Smith

Sound Eskimo--number about 240.

_History._--In the beginning of the 10th century the Norwegian

Gunnbjorn, son of Ulf Kraka, is reported to have found some islands to

the west of Iceland, and he may have seen, without landing upon it, the

southern part of the east coast of Greenland. In 982 the Norwegian Eric

the Red sailed from Iceland to find the land which Gunnbjorn had seen,

and he spent three years on its south-western coasts exploring the

country. On his return to Iceland in 985 he called the land Greenland in

order to make people more willing to go there, and reported so

favourably on its possibilities that he had no difficulty in obtaining

followers. In 986 he started again from Iceland with 25 ships, but only

14 of them reached Greenland, where a colony was founded on the

south-west coast, in the present Julianehaab district. Eric built his

house at Brattalid, near the inner end oi the fjord Tunugdliarfik, just

north of the present Julianehaab. Other settlers followed and in a few

years two colonies had been formed, one called Osterbygd in the present

district of Julianehaab comprising later about 190 farms, and another

called Vesterbygd farther north on the west coast in the present

district of Godthaab, comprising later about 90 farms. Numerous ruins in

the various fjords of these two districts indicate now where these

colonies were. Wooden coffins, with skeletons wrapped in coarse hairy

cloth, and both pagan and Christian tombstones with runic inscriptions

have been found. On a voyage from Norway to Greenland Leif Ericsson (son

of Eric the Red) discovered America in the year 1000, and a few years

later Torfinn Karlsefne sailed with three ships and about 150 men, from

Greenland to Nova Scotia to form a colony, but returned three years

later (see VINLAND).

When the Norsemen came to Greenland they found various remains

indicating, as the old sagas say, that there had been people of a

similar kind as those they met with in Vinland, in America, whom they

called _Skraeling_ (the meaning of the word is uncertain, it means

possibly weak people); but the sagas do not report that they actually

met the natives then. But somewhat later they have probably met with the

Eskimo farther north on the west coast in the neighbourhood of Disco

Bay, where the Norsemen went to catch seals, walrus, &c. The Norse

colonists penetrated on these fishing expeditions at least to 73 deg.

N., where a small runic stone from the 14th century has been found. On a

voyage in 1267 they penetrated even still farther north into the

Melville Bay.

Christianity was introduced by Leif Ericsson at the instance of Olaf

Trygvasson, king of Norway, in 1000 and following years. In the

beginning of the 12th century Greenland got its own bishop, who resided

at Garolar, near the present Eskimo station Igoliko, on an isthmus

between two fjords, Igaliksfjord (the old Einarsfjord) and Tunugdliarfik

(the old Eriksfjord), inside the present colony Julianehaab. The Norse

colonies had twelve churches, one monastery and one nunnery in the

Osterbygd, and four churches in the Vesterbygd. Greenland, like Iceland,

had a republican organization up to the years 1247 to 1261, when the

Greenlanders were induced to swear allegiance to the king of Norway.

Greenland belonged to the Norwegian crown till 1814, when, at the

dissolution of the union between Denmark and Norway, neither it nor

Iceland and the Faeroes were mentioned, and they, therefore, were kept

by the Danish king and thus came to Denmark. The settlements were called

respectively _Oster Bygd_ (or eastern settlement) and _Vester_ (western)

_Bygd_, both being now known to be on the south and west coast (in the

districts of Julianehaab and Godthaab respectively), though for long the

view was persistently held that the first was on the east coast, and

numerous expeditions have been sent in search of these "lost colonies"

and their imaginary survivors. These settlements at the height of their

prosperity are estimated to have had 10,000 inhabitants, which, however,

is an over-estimate, the number having probably been nearer one-half or

one-third of that number. The last bishop appointed to Greenland died in

1540, but long before that date those appointed had never reached their

sees; the last bishop who resided in Greenland died there in 1377. After

the middle of the 14th century very little is heard of the settlements,

and their communication with the motherland, Norway, evidently gradually

ceased. This may have been due in great part to the fact that the

shipping and trade of Greenland became a monopoly of the king of Norway,

who kept only one ship sailing at long intervals (of years) to

Greenland; at the same time the shipping and trade of Norway came more

and more in the hands of the Hanseatic League, which took no interest in

Greenland. 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. This seems a less feasible explanation; it is more

probable that the Norse settlers intermarried with the Eskimo and were

gradually absorbed. About the end of the 15th or the beginning of the

16th century it would appear that all Norse colonization had practically

disappeared. When in 1585 John Davis visited it there was no sign of any

people save the Eskimo, among whose traditions are a few directly

relating to the old Norsemen, and several traces of Norse influence.[40]

For more than two hundred years Greenland seems to have been neglected,

almost forgotten. It was visited by whalers, chiefly Dutch, but nothing

in the form of permanent European settlements was established until the

year 1721, when the first missionary, the Norwegian clergyman Hans

Egede, landed, and established a settlement near Godthaab. Amid many

hardships and discouragements he persevered; and at the present day the

native race is civilized and Christianized. Many of the colonists of the

18th century were convicts and other offenders; and in 1750 the trade

became a monopoly in the hands of a private company. In 1733-1734 there

was a dreadful epidemic of smallpox, which destroyed a great number of

the people. In 1774 the trade ceased to be profitable as a private

monopoly, and to prevent it being abandoned the government took it over.

Julianehaab was founded in the following year. In 1807-1814, owing to

the war, communication was cut off with Norway and Denmark; but

subsequently the colony prospered in a languid fashion.

_Authorities._--As to the discovery of Greenland by the Norsemen and

its early history see Konrad Maurer's excellent paper, "Geschichte der

Entdeckung Ostgronlands" in the report of _Die zweite deutsche

Nordpolarfahrt 1869-1870_ (Leipzig, 1874), vol. i.; G. Storm, _Studies

on the "Vineland" Voyages_ (Copenhagen, 1889); _Extraits des Memoires

de la Societe Royale des Antiquaires du Nord_ (1888); K. J. V.

Steenstrup, "Om Osterbygden," _Meddelelser om Gronland_, part ix.

(1882), pp. 1-51; Finnur Jonsson, "Gronlands gamle Topografi efter

Kilderne" in _Meddelelser om Gronland_, part xx. (1899), pp. 265-329;

Joseph Fischer, _The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America_,

translated from German by B. H. Soulsby (London, 1903). As to the

general literature on Greenland, a number of the more important modern

works have been noticed in footnotes. The often-quoted _Meddelelser om

Gronland_ is of especial value; it is published in parts (Copenhagen)

since 1879, and is chiefly written in Danish, but each part has a

summary in French. In part xiii. there is a most valuable list of

literature about Greenland up to 1880. See also _Geographical

Journal_, passim.

Amongst other important books on Greenland may be mentioned: Hans

Egede, _Description of Greenland_ (London, 1745); Crantz, _History of

Greenland_ (2 vols., London, 1820); _Gronlands historiske

Mindesmerker_ (3 vols., Copenhagen, 1838-1845); H. Rink, _Danish

Greenland_ (London, 1877); H. Rink, _Tales of the Eskimo_ (London,

1875); (see also same, "Eskimo Tribes" in _Meddelelser om Gronland_,

part xi.); Johnstrup, _Giesecke's Mineralogiske Reise i Gronland_

(Copenhagen, 1878). (F. N.)