Cold as Greenland is, there was a time when matters were different. In token of this we have the Miocene fossils collected by Edward Whymper during his expedition from near Jakobshavn in 1867, which were described and illustrated by Oswald Heer in the Philosophical Transactions for 1869. A look at these is a welcome relief after such a surfeit of ice. Here, as well preserved as in the leaf beds of Alum Bay, are the leaves and fruits of an unmistakable temperate flora. Magnolias, maples, poplars, limes, walnuts, water-lilies; myrica, smilax, aralia; sedges and grasses, conifers and ferns: these at the least were all growing in Greenland in its Miocene age. And even a thousand years ago the climate must have been milder than now, to judge by the farming reports of the colonists who seem to have been quite at home along the coast, which, with its innumerable islands and fiords, is as intricate as that of Norway.
Searching for the ancient eastern settlement of the Norsemen, W. A. Graah, in 1829, wintered at Julianehaab, which in all likelihood is the site, although he knew it not. Possessed with the idea that it must be on the south-eastern coast, he devoted his attention to that region only, finding Eskimos who had never seen a white man and starting a trading intercourse which led to most of them migrating to the less inclement west. His work linked up with that of Scoresby, who in 1822 charted the main features of the sea-front from 69° to 75°. Ryder, seventy years afterwards, filled in the details of much of Scoresby's work, and found Eskimos further north, as Clavering had done in 1823, when in the Griper during Sabine's observations at Pendulum Island.
THE "GERMANIA" IN THE ICE
It was to Pendulum Island, in 74° 32´, that Karl Koldewey, after his preliminary run to 81° 5´ in 1868, took the Germania to winter during the German expedition of 1869. The two vessels, the Germania, a small two-masted screw steamer of one hundred and forty-three tons, built specially for Arctic service, and the Hansa, only half her size, which had been strengthened for the voyage, reached Jan Mayen on the 9th of July, and, hidden from each other by fog, sailed northwards for five days. On the fifth evening the wind rose, the fog cleared, and a hundred yards in front of them lay the ice like a rugged line of cliffs.
For a few days they sailed along it endeavouring to find an opening to the north. Then, on the 20th, the Germania ran up a signal to approach and communicate, which was misunderstood, and, instead of repeating it and making sure, the Hansa put up her helm, fell off, crowded on all sail, and disappeared in the fog. Koldewey, persisting in his efforts to get through the pack, found an opening on the 1st of August. Nine days afterwards he was again blocked, and finally, on the 27th, he reached Pendulum Island, where he made the Germania snug for the winter, which proved to be remarkably mild.
The first sledge party travelling up one of the fiords met with abundant vegetation and herds of reindeer and musk oxen, and were visited by bears who had not learnt to be wary of man; and when the bears came back with the sun in February they were as troublesome as those of Ice Haven to the Dutchmen. Several sledge parties went out in the spring, and, notwithstanding inadequate equipment, did excellent work. In April, 1870, Koldewey reached 77° 1´, almost up to Lambert Land, otherwise the Land of Edam. Here, looking out over the ice-belt, they agreed that it was "a bulwark built for eternity," and hoisting sails on their sledges they ran back to the ship. But in 1905 the Duke of Orleans arrived on the coast to reach 78° 16´ and discover that their Cape Bismarck was on an island and their Dove Bay a strait.
In the neighbourhood of their winter quarters the glaciers and mountains were well explored, and an attempt was made to measure an arc of the meridian, which proved to be rather rough work among such surroundings. The snowstorms were particularly pitiless and heavy, and the travelling decidedly bad. The thaw began about the middle of May, and there was more sledging through pools than usual, so that they did not want variety in their occupations. On the 14th of July boating became practicable, and a voyage was made to the Eskimo village found by Clavering in 1823, on the island named after him, but the village proved to be deserted and the huts in ruins—an unwelcome discovery, for, as M'Clintock says in reference to it: "It is not less strange than sad to find that a peaceable and once numerous tribe, inhabiting a coast-line of at least seven degrees of latitude, has died out, or has almost died out, whilst at the same time we find, by the diminution of the glaciers and increase of animal life, that the terrible severity of the climate has undergone considerable modification. We feel this saddening interest with greater force when we reflect that the distance of Clavering's village from the coast of Scotland is under one thousand miles. They were our nearest neighbours of the New World."
THE REGION ROUND MOUNT PETERMANN