48 STATE OF GREENLAND, 



degree, where Herjolf s Ness, in the sixty-third degree, forms 

 a bold round promontory. It is not recorded that any na- 

 vigator has penetrated further north than this point on the 

 eastern side, though some charts exhibit inlets bearing 

 Dutch or Danish names somewhat higher up. We may, 

 therefore, fairly assume it as a fact, that Greenland on the 

 eastern side from Herjolf 's Ness to the pole is decidedly 

 unexplored, and the reports of experienced seamen are 

 positive in expressing the impossibility of coming within 

 many degrees of the supposed line of coast from the con- 

 tinual presence of ice ; and that the ice which is carried to 

 the southward from the Greenland fishing grounds is always 

 limited to a certain meridian, westward of which it has been 

 never known to break up. Eastward of this parallel they 

 have at times penetrated beyond the eighty-fourth degree. 



South and westward of Herjolf's Ness is Skaga-fiord. 

 a sound, the termination of Avhich was never ascertained : 

 but from its apparent direction, it is thought to have a 

 communication with Makkely Onit in South-East Bay, at 

 Disko. 



Between Herjolf's Ness and Staten Hook there were 

 many more inlets inhabited in former times. Whether these 

 inlets may not have a leading into the preceding communi- 

 cation, must not be looked upon as at variance with pro- 

 babihty. 



No one now will doubt that Frobisher's Straits penetrate 



