146 THE VEGETATION OF NORTH GREENLAND. 
The only plants which can enter into the question of economy are cer- 
tain wild ones, which serve for Juel, or for food and medicine. 
Fuel.—For this purpose Willows and dwarf Birches are used prin- 
cipally, but also some low bushy plants, Empetrum, Vaccinium, Ledum 
Grænlandicum, Andromeda tetragona, which last appear to be very re- 
sinous, as they quickly flame up when lighted. The Birches and Wil- 
lows, which are larger and more important, are never wanting, though 
they seldom abound in equal proportions, sometimes the one, some- 
times the other prevailing in different places. They are generally 
found to have their roots fixed in clefts, and creep along the ground 
to a length of three or four ells ; just at the root the stems may be two 
or three inches in diameter, but fòr the most part not more than an 
inch, and very much knotted and twisted. There are a few spots 
where a number of these bushes, being collected, do so support each 
other that they rise to the height of an ell and a half at most, 
and form something like a thicket. Such a willow-copse may be 
found here and there about Godhavn, and partieularly on the north- 
west and north-east sides of the Disko Fiord, at Koevsak and Qvan- 
nersoit; here it only covers strips of some hundred ells in length, 
where the ground is gravelly, but the greater part of this low tract is 
swampy, and covered with tufts of Sedges and Lichens. On the east 
side of Disko Bay the Birch-trees appear to prevail, but there are but 
few places where any considerable collection of them is to be found. 
The Greenlanders gather the wood on the hills, over which they are 
scattered, especially in the winter, when the twigs are brittle; even 
at Jakobshavn, where they have for many years supplied the tile-stoves, 
they can in a couple of hours get a sledge-load on the nearest hills. 
From the south-eastern part of the bay runs to the east a hollow 
which bears the name of Orpiksoit (the great wood), and in the 
district of Upernivik they talk much of such a wood (Orpik), 
which is said to exist at the head of the Laxefiord, and in which a 
rein-deer is said once to have hidden itself from its pursuers; but it 
is much to be doubted if any of these trees are much more than 
an ell in height, or that anything could be seen of the woods we may 
have beneath us, when we drive over the snow across these tracts 
in winter. . 
On the outer and lower islands the bushes, such as Bear-berries, are 
more scarce than on the eastern coasts within the Fiord, and altogether 
