depression entails a greater extension of the neighboring glaciers, and, as a consequence, the narrow strip of inhabitable territory is being further contracted on both sides.1

The western coast of Greenland's southern half is the small portion of the island which was known and inhabited by the Scandinavian settlers of old, and the scene of an interesting period of America's ancient history. The Northmen established their new homes all along it, as far as one thousand and fifty miles north of Cape Farewell, besides their summer fishing-stations, called the "Kroksfiardarheidi," on the present Lancaster and Jones's Sounds, still nearer to the Pole. The breadth, on the contrary, of this long stretch of Northman colonies was very small, and it was next to impossible for either settlers or natives to climb the icy chain of mountains which, running almost parallel with the sea-shore, was a faithful guardian of the inland forbidding chaos.2 The distance between these two lines never exceeds ninety miles, while it is often reduced to twenty. This strip of land, threatened on one side by overhanging ice and snow, is bordered on the other by thousands of small islands, by shoals and projecting cliffs, and is cut up by deep firths which, river-like, penetrate to the foot of the vast glacier, leaving between them irregular spaces of precipitous banks and of barren table-land, with some few small valleys and slopes where a hardy colonist may venture to make his living betwixt the melting and the falling snow.

3

Owing to a branch of the beneficent Gulf-stream that forces its way to quite a distance up the western coasts of Greenland, the Östrebygd settlements enjoyed a more equable and moderate climate than any other

1 Moosmüller, S. 233, n. 11; Gravier, p. 35.

2 Maltebrun, t. v. p. 255.

3 Brockhaus, art. Grönland.

portion of the island. Their temperature is by many considered as being the same as that of Iceland, the yearly average being 39.5° Fahrenheit, while other well-informed authors assert that the fogs are less, the days of sunshine more numerous, and the cold not so vehement as in Iceland and Norway. It is true, sometimes it is immoderately cold, and the tempests rage in the Greenland colonies more violently than elsewhere; but they do not last long, happen seldom, and are never so excessive as to kill the cattle.' It is easily understood, however, that all domestic animals are sheltered during the long winter season.2

Whatever the climate may be in Greenland to-day, it is the general opinion of the learned and of the people in Iceland, not to say a well-established fact, that it was considerably milder at the time of its first Scandinavian colonization.3

We do not believe any more the meteorological fable of a sudden change of climate in the North and of the formation of a wall of ice that should, at once, have prevented all further communication between Norway and its Greenland colonies; but the constant extension of the glaciers and the greater accumulation of ice in the Arctic Ocean, especially noticeable since the beginning of the fifteenth century, have gradually lowered the temperature of all Greenland

1 Maltebrun, t. v. p. 256; John Skardza and Bishop Thorlak, Speculum Regale; Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. xiv. p. 101; Peyrère, p. 205; Crantz, vol. i. p. 247.

2 Ivar Bardson states that Greenland never suffers of violent winds or tempests, and that, although there is a copious fall of snow, the cold is not so bitter as in Iceland or Norway. The "Speculum Re

gale" testifies that the island is not devoid of sunshine and clear summer weather, that storms are scarce and last but a short time, and that the climate is generally pretty good, although rather cold. (Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 318.)

3 Maurer, S. 8; Gravier, p. 217. Von Humboldt, Kosmos, S.

459.

1

and rendered it less habitable. Before describing the island, Ivar Bardson makes the remark that voyagers from Iceland used to follow a direct western route, passing, at nearly midway, the rocks of Gunnbjörn ; "but since," he adds, "the ice has rendered this route impracticable, sailors must now take a southwestern course and afterwards veer to the North, to make the cape Hvarf," or Farewell.2 Pontanus relates the same, and Torfason likewise observes that the Greenland voyage, which used to be made due west in fortyeight hours from Iceland, now requires southwesterly sailing, in order to avoid the ice that surrounds the Gunnbjörn skerries."

4

Geology offers another significant proof of climatic change in boreal regions. There are now no forests in Iceland, only here and there a few short and slender shrubs; but the trees that are still found buried deep in the earth, and frequently among the rocks, should prevent our too hastily rejecting the evidence of the ancient chronicles, when they describe the country as different from what it is to-day." Hayes states in regard to Greenland' that, during his exploration of the western coast, he was greatly interested by the existence of coal deposits on the island of Disco and the adjoining terra firma. "These vast accumulations of vegetable

1 Moosmüller, S. 233; Gravier, p. 201; Gaffarel, Histoire, p. 345; Archivio Storico Italiano, serie iv. t. ii. p. 402.

2 Archivio Storico Italiano, serie iv. t. ii. p. 402.

3 Lib. ix., ad an. 1389, p. 521. ♦ Gronlandia Antiqua, cap. ix. p. 64.

5 De Costa, Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson, p. 61: "A treatise of Iver Boty, a Gronlander, translated. . . in the yeere 1608 for the

use of me Henrie Hudson.

Item, men shall know, that between Island and Gronland, lyeth a Risse called Gombornse-Skare. There they were wont to have their passage for Gronland. But as they report there is Ice on the same Risse, come out of the long North Bottome, so that we cannot use the same old Passage, as they thinke." Mallet, p. 189; cf. Winsor, vol. i. p. 61.

'Land of Desol., ch. xxiv. p. 127.

matter," he observes, "give us to understand that, in ages long past, that region was deserving its name of Greenland." According to De Costa' geologists find evidence that, at one time, a highly tropical climate must have existed in the boreal countries, since fossil figs and tropic trees are among the wonders of Greenland; and this fact is confirmed by late explorations.

"The climate of the northern hemisphere was anciently far milder than at present," says Foster. "Fossil acorns and fir cones are found in the interior of Bank's Land, far within the Arctic Circle. In Greenland there are remains of large forests encased in ice. At Disco's island, the northern verge of European settlement, the strata are full of leaves, branches, and trunks, and even seeds and fruit-cones of trees, comprising firs, sequoias, elms, magnolias, and laurels. Spitzbergen was clothed with a luxuriant forest, and the lignite beds of Iceland yield large arborescent forms, where now the vegetation is dwarfed." 2

Nowhere, indeed, are the climatic changes which have occurred more striking than in Greenland and Iceland, and nowhere have a few centuries produced such a complete revolution. "A thousand years ago," says Evan Hopkins, "Greenland was a fertile land, and supported a large population. Iceland, at that period, was covered with forests of birch and fir, and the inhabitants cultivated barley and other grains." "There is no doubt in my mind," says Dr. Kane, "that, at a time within historical and even recent limits, the climate of this region was milder than it is now. Ancient stone huts of the natives [?] are found scattered along the bays, in spots now so fenced in by ice as to preclude all possibility of the hunt, and, of course, of habitation by men 1 Precolumbian Discovery, p. 93, 2 Foster, pp. 29, 30.

who rely on it for subsistence. Tradition points to these as once favorite hunting-grounds near open water. At Rensselaer Harbor, called by the natives Aunatok or the Thawing Place, we met with huts in quite good preservation, with the stone pedestals still standing which used to sustain the carcasses of the captured seals and walrus. Sunny Gorge and a large indentation in Dallas Bay which bears the Esquimau name of Inhabited Spot showed us the remains of a village surrounded by bones of seals, walrus, and whales,—all now cased in ice." 1

The principal cause of this remarkable change of temperature and climate is said to be the precession of equinoxes, in consequence of which the winters of our northern hemisphere take place during alternate periods of the earth's perihelion and aphelion. According to some calculations, the latest increase of cold in the North has commenced in the year 1248, and is to last for ten thousand five hundred more years. If so, it may well be feared that Greenland's extending glaciers will, during the present period, cover the whole of our United States. The elliptic form of our planet's orbit and the variation of the ecliptic's obliquity are alleged as co-operative causes of the same phenomenon.2

While we leave it to the learned to give more ample and satisfactory explanation of the causes, we wish the reader to notice that their actual effects were less injurious to the Northmen than to the modern Danish colonists, allowing the former to avail themselves better of Greenland's natural resources, to reap the fruits of husbandry, and secure the profits of commerce.

1 Arctic Explorations, vol. i. p. 308, ap. Southall, p. 377.

2 Arcelin, L'Époque Glaciaire, in

Congrès Scient., sec. viii. p. 85; De Costa, Precolumbian Discovery, p. 93, n. 3.