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SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



GEOLOGY AND HYDROGRAPHY. 



1. Subsidence of the Coast of Greenland. — In a letter from 

 Dr Pingel of Copenhagen, to the President of the Geological 

 Society of London, it is stated that the first observations which 

 led to the supposition that the west coast of Greenland had sub- 

 sided, were made by Arctander between 1777 and 1779. He 

 noticed, in the firth called Igalliko, (lat. 60° 43' N.), that a 

 small, low, rocky island, about a gun-shot from the shore, was 

 almost entirely submerged at spring tides, yet there were on it 

 the walls of a house fifty-two feet in length, thirty feet in breadth, 

 fL\Q feet thick, and six feet high. Half a century later, when 

 Dr Pingel visited the island, the whole of it was so far sub- 

 merged that the ruins alone rose above the waters. The colony 

 of Julianahaab was founded in the mouth of the same firth in 

 1776 ; and near a rock, called the Castle by the Danish colo- 

 nists, are the foundations of their storehouse, which are now dry 

 only at very low water. The neighbourhood of the colony of 

 Frederickehaab (lat. 62° N), was once inhabited by the Green- 

 landers, but the only vestige of their dwelling is a heap of stones, 

 over which the firth flows at high water. Near the well known 

 glacier which separates the district of Frederickehaab from that 

 of Fiskenass, is a group of islands called Fulluartalik, now de- 

 serted ; but on the shore are the ruins of winter dwellings, which 

 are often overflowed. Half a mile to the west of the village of 

 Fiskenass, (lat. 63° 4' N.), the Moravians founded, in 1758, the 

 establishment called Litchtenfield. In thirty or forty years 

 they were obliged once, perhaps twice, to move the poles upon 

 which they set their large boats, called unnak or women's boat. 

 The old poles still remain as silent witnesses, but beneath the 

 water. To the north-east of the mother colony Godthaab, 

 (lat. 64° l(y N.), is a point called Vildmansnass, by St Egede, 

 the venerable apostle of the Greenlanders. In his time, 1721- 

 1736, it was inhabited by several Greenland families, whose 

 winter dwelling remains desolate and in ruins, the firth flowing 



