This kryolite mine is really a wonderful affair. Why Nature should have ever taken it into her head to drop this valuable mineral in Greenland, and nowhere else, is a puzzling matter. The mineral is a fluorate of sodium and aluminum (mostly the former), the best specimens containing ninety-nine, the worst ninety per cent. Besides these, I found iron, tin, lead, silver, copper, arsenic, and molybdenum; but none of these latter exist in sufficient quantities to make the working of them profitable.
The soda is the product which makes the mine (or rather quarry) valuable. And a mine of riches it would be, truly, were it anywhere else almost in the whole wide world. Its great distance from manufacturing marts; the extraordinary dangers attending the shipment of it, owing to the ice; the high royalty which the Government imposes; and the shortness of the season during which the miners can work, make it comparatively of little importance in a commercial point of view. Yet one-half the product of the mine (six thousand tons) is annually shipped to Philadelphia, in from fifteen to twenty vessels, whence it is carried by rail to Pittsburgh, to be converted into commercial soda by the Pennsylvania Salt Company, who would, but for this mine at Iviktut, be compelled to make their soda from artificial sources.
The discovery of the mineral was made by the natives many years ago. It is said they used it in a powdered state, as civilized men do snuff. At first it showed itself as a little round, yellowish hummock above the general gray of the metamorphic rock which inclosed it. Upon coming to the knowledge of the world, only a few fragments were brought away; and I can remember the time, when my mineralogical studies first commenced, that to obtain the smallest fragment, even, of the Greenland kryolite was to add to a collection one of its most rare and costly minerals. Now it has no other value than to boil down into soda for ordinary commercial uses.
The mine has been in operation under the present company about twelve years. An effort to work it had been previously made, but failed for want of capital, and under the present management it has only lately been profitable. The mineral appears to exist as a sort of conical injection through the overlying rock. It is now worked down until the mine, or quarry, is about sixty yards in diameter and fifty feet deep, forty of which are below the sea-level; and since the solid rock is interrupted for a short distance on the sea-side, the water has constantly endangered the mine by flooding—a catastrophe only prevented by the admirable engineering skill of Mr. Fritz.
The number of miners employed is about one hundred, and since there are no settlements in the neighborhood, and therefore no natives to bring them supplies, their provisioning is entirely done from home. The miners were a well-contented-looking people, and, so far as I could see, did not suffer in their isolated situation any thing worse than the torment of mosquitoes, which there, as in all other parts of South Greenland, where the ice does not overrun the land, are thick as the sands on the sea-shore.
The kryolite is the only mineral product of Greenland that has proved of any commercial value. Yet, judging from the appearance of the country, one might think Greenland abounded in mineral wealth, and, if properly explored, a profitable return would certainly be obtained. An unsuccessful effort was made to work a plumbago vein near Upernavik, but to this and the kryolite the mining operations of Greenland have, I believe, been confined.
Unfortunately, the day of our visit to Iviktut was as dirty and disagreeable an one as ever was seen even in that country—rain, hail, snow, wind, cold, every thing possible almost in the way of badness. We did not, therefore, remain long, but, picking up our anchor again, we steamed away once more, and, passing through a narrow gate-way at the foot of the Great Kunak, or Arsut mountain, as it is sometimes called, we were soon out at sea, heading northward for the Arctic Circle, to find the midnight sun.
The midnight sun! A word of strange import! A new existence was to open for us now, in a summer of perpetual brightness. For days and weeks together lamps would be held in great contempt; we would be careless of the hours; there would be “no morn, no noon, no night—no any time of day;” no time for “turning in” or “turning out,” except as the ticking clock might show us what to do,
“In that strange, mysterious clime, where springs
Are but the twilights of the summer day;