latter shore than in the presence of American ones. The mammals of Greenland are the wolf (one, apparently a straggler from the opposite shores, being killed in 1869), the dog, fox (white and blue varieties), white bear, ermine, walrus, live or six species of seals, the lemming, the arctic hare, the musk ox, the reindeer, the right whale, four species of fin-whale, the sperm-whale (very rare), the bottle-nose, white whale, narwhal, caaing whale, porpoise, euphrosyne dolphin, two species of Lagenorhynchus, and the sword-fish. Of these the ermine, lemming, and musk ox are not found as far south as the Danish possessions. They inhabit the shores of Smith Sound and East Greenland in about the same latitude, but do not stretch farther south, so that the probabilities are that they have migrated round the northern end of the country, and are kept from spreading southward by the glaciers. The mouse, goat, sheep, and ox have been introduced, and the cat is domesticated as far north as Danish women have wandered. Goats, sheep, and oxen live only in the little greenish valleys of the extreme south; in the north there are none. A few pigs are kept at Ivigtut. The right whale is now rarely killed off the coast of Greenland, the whalers merely passing up the coast to the fishing grounds further north and west. The Eskimo at Holstensborg still occasionally harpoon one or two, but the industry is a mere shadow of what it once was. The humpback, one of the fin-whales, is now and then killed, but the narwhal and white whale form the staple “fishery” of the Greenlanders. Of seals it has been calculated that there are annually captured 51,000 of the floe-rat (Phoca hispida), between 1000 and 2000 of the kasigiak (P. vitulina), 23,000 saddlebacks (P. Greenlandica), 1000 of the ugsuk or thong-seal (P. barbata, the ground or “grown” seal of the English sealers), and 3000 of the bladdernose (Cystophora cristata). About 200 walruses, 600 white whales, 100 narwhals, a few porpoises, on an average one right-whale (in the season from December to March, when it goes as near the coast as the ice will permit in the south), and two or three humpbacks (Magaptera longimana), are killed. The other whales are rare, and are captured only under peculiar circumstances. The average catch of the Greenlanders thus amounts to 89,000 seals, 700 white whales and narwhals, and 2 or 3 large whales. Of these seals it may be stated that 38,000 have been caught with harpoons and bladders, 38,000 killed by fire-arms, and 13,000 caught in nets. The polar bear is almost extinct,—about 50 being annually killed in the north, or in the south when they have floated from the east coast on the Spitsbergen heavy ice which doubles Cape Farewell and impinges on the coast south of 69° N. lat., or occasionally in the intervening space where a wandering bear has been carried south on a broken-up floe. The reindeer, once killed in enormous quantities, is sharing the fate of the bear. Between 1845 and 1849 about 25,000 were shot annually, and 16,000 skins were exported. In 1872 there were not more than 1000 killed, and only 6 skins exported. It is now rarely seen in Mid Greenland. The number of foxes trapped averages 1500 per annum; in 1874 5000 were caught, chiefly between 60° and 61° N. lat. About 1000 white hares are killed. The true bird denizens of Greenland cannot be given at higher than 63, while 62 others are reported as stragglers. Of the denizens 5 belong to the Old World, 11 to the New World, 45 are common to both worlds, and 2 are doubtful.[1] Only the raven, ptarmigan, hawk, owl, and a few sea-birds are resident all the year round; the rest are migratory. The ptarmigan is killed for food to the extent of about 12,000 per annum, while the number of eider ducks destroyed is so enormous that the export of eider down has fallen within the last twenty years from 5600 to 2000 ℔. Rink estimates the number killed annually at 20,000, and that of auks and smaller sea-fowl at 50,000. The eggs taken yearly, chiefly those of eider ducks, has been estimated at 50,000. Of the 79 or 80 fishes described from Greenland very few are peculiar to it; of these the shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is caught for the sake of the oil extracted from its liver, to the extent of from 16,000 to 20,000 per annum. The cod is a migratory fish, and is caught on the banks to the extent of 200,000 per annum, chiefly by the natives. A few salmon trout (Salmo carpio) are caught in the little lakes and brooks, while the large and small holibut, the red fish (Sebastes), and the nepisak (Cyclopterus lumpus) form a considerable portion of the food of the natives. The capelin (Mallotus villosus) is caught in enormous quantities (over 1½ million ℔ are dried annually), while a few smaller fish and mussels complete the tribute which the Eskimo take from the sea laving their barren shores. There are no reptiles or amphibians in Greenland, and the lists of invertebrata contain little of general interest.[2]
The vegetation in the height of summer is, in favourable situations, profuse in individual plants, but 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, crowberries, bilberries, and similar plants, while the flowers most common are the andromeda, the yellow poppy, pedicularis, pyrola, the Alpine rose (rhododendron), saxifrages (12 species), drabas, dryas, &c.; but in South Greenland there is something in the shape of bush,—the dwarf birches even rising a few feet in very sheltered places, and the vegetation is less arctic and more abundant. Altogether, 361 flowering plants, ferns, horse-tails, quillworts, and club mosses have been described, while the lists of cryptogamic plants, though very imperfect, show a profuse vegetation of the lowlier orders.[3] No crops, in the strict acceptation of the term, are cultivated in Greenland, but at Godthaab attempts have been made to grow turnips, radishes, lettuce, and chervil in little gardens made with earth brought from the site of old Eskimo houses. Potatoes never grow larger than small marbles, while pease only produce seeds barely recognizable. At Nanortalik strawberries have been produced in a forcing frame, carrots matured tolerably well, and turnips have been grown weighing half a pound. Rhubarb grew vigorously, but could not be raised from seed, while cabbage leaves, under the most favourable circumstances, were poor and flavourless. In the north, radishes represent the highest triumph which horticulture has achieved. Flowers, owing to the long sunlight, grow very well indoors, but require great care, otherwise they soon die.
Government.—Excluding the extreme northern parts of Greenland, and the north-east coast, which may be claimed by the English, American, and Germans “by right of discovery,”—the trade of Greenland is a strict monopoly of the Danish crown, dating from 1774, and is at present administered in Copenhagen by a Government board, the “Kongelige Grönlandske Handel,”—and in the country by various officials in Government pay. In order to meet the double purposes of government and trade, the west coast, up to nearly 74° N. lat., is divided into two inspectorates, the southern extending to 67° 40′ N. lat., the northern comprising the rest of the country, their 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 capital or “coloni” (a hamlet containing three or four Danish dwellings, a storehouse, blubber-boiling house, in a few cases a Lutheran “missionair” or clergyman, a teacher, and a physician), several outlying posts and Eskimo hunting stations, each presided over by an “udligger,” who is responsible to the “colonibestyrer” or superintendent of the district. These trading settlements, which dot the coast for a distance of 1000 miles, are about 60 in number, and collect the products from 176 inhabited places. From these Eskimo hunting and fishing stations blubber is the chief article received, in parcels weighing from 50 to 100 ℔, and forwarded in casks to the “coloni,” where it is boiled into oil, and prepared for being despatched to Copenhagen by means of the Government sailing ships, which arrive and leave between May and November. For the rest of the year all navigation is stopped, though the winter months form the busy seal-killing season. The principle which the Government acts upon 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 merchandize is charged, on an average, more than 20 per cent. over the cost price in Denmark. In addition, the Greenland people are allowed to order goods from private
- ↑ Newton, Manual and Instructions (1875), p. 94.
- ↑ See Manual and Instructions for the Arctic Expedition of 1875, and the papers there by Brown, Newton, Lütken, Reinhardt, Schjödte, Mörch, and others, abstracted with corrections in the appendix to Rink, lib. cit. (1877), numerous memoirs and papers in the Danish scientific journals and transactions, Jeffrey's and Carpenter's report of the “Valorous” expedition (Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. xxv.), the appendix to Nares's Voyage to Polar Seas, 1875-76, and the references in these works and in appendix to Nordenskjöld's Voyages, 1879.
- ↑ See the appendix to Rink, lib. cit., the references to papers there given, those printed in the Manual already referred to, and the memoirs of Berggren, Fries, and Agardh in the Transactions of the Upsala and Stockholm Academies, 1861-74. A flora of Greenland is in preparation by Prof. Lange.
