The present inhabitants number about ten thousand, most of whom are Eskimos. They are lacking in thrift and live chiefly by hunting and fishing. Among the wild animals living here are the arctic fox, the arctic hare, the musk ox, the seal, the polar bear, the ermine, and the walrus.
The principal resources of the island are sealskins, eider-down, oil, and cryolite.
Cryolite is a mineral from which common soda is easily extracted, and also from which the light silver-like aluminum was formerly prepared. The mines near the village of Ivigtut furnish practically the world's supply of this mineral. Formerly it was carried to Philadelphia, but in recent years not much is used. The fisheries are a monopoly of Denmark, and each station is visited from one to three or four times a year.
CHAPTER XV
WHERE THE TWO GREAT OCEANS MEET
Perhaps there is no section of the globe about which most well-informed persons know so little as the southern part of South America. Judged by the reports of early discoverers and explorers, this region until recently has been considered a desolate stretch of snow mountains, barren plains, and extensive morasses, sparsely inhabited by a few thousand human beings of the lowest type and worthless to civilized man.
Such a picture is but partly true. Many of the highest mountains are snow-capped throughout the year and are scored by immense glaciers which are constantly moving down their grooved sides; but there are also heavily forested slopes flanked by valleys and plains covered with rich grasses, making most excellent pasturage. The best land, comprising a large area, is now occupied as grazing grounds principally by sheep farmers.
In the early part of the sixteenth century it was rumored that a water passage traversed the southern part of South America. This rumor was proved true in 1520, when Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator in the service of Charles V of Spain, sailed through the strait which now bears his name. He called the passage Todos los Santos—literally, "All Saints"—but later the name was changed to commemorate the bold captain who discovered the route.