Rink.] JiV^ [March 20, 



had disappeared, and an Eskimo population was met with instead. The 

 present trading stations were founded after 1721. Ruins of the ancient 

 settlements, however, were from lime to time discovered, partly between 

 60O and Gfc, and partly between 04° and 65° N. latitude, while the inter- 

 jacent tract had been almost uninhabited. Our recent expeditions have 

 not neglected the opportunity to continue these investigations, especially 

 Lieutenant Holm has examined the remains in the southernmost of the 

 two districts, According to his report 100 different ruins of ancient ham- 

 lets have been discovered there, the largest of them containing the remains 

 of thirty buildings. The houses are from twelve to eighteen feet broad. 

 The length is twenty to thirty feet or, when divided by a partition wall, 

 fifty feet. Digging up the interior, burnt wood and iron nails are found 

 on a level with the original floor, indicating a destruction by fire. Some 

 very narrow buildings were evidently stables, the remains of stalls still 

 being visible. 



As barren highlands are frequent even in these most favorable portions 

 of Greenland, the settlers were restricted to narrow borders of lowland, 

 chiefly at the head of fjords. In contrast to Greenland scenery in general 

 these spots exhibit a fertile and inviting appearance, especially where such 

 a lowland continues across a peninsula joining a corresponding spot in 

 the next fjord. The number of ruins show that these localities had the 

 greatest attraction to the Scandinavians. Lieutenant Holm has given us 

 a description of such a valley, the middle part of which had scarcely been 

 visited by natives during the latest generations, and with perhaps a single 

 exception, never by Europeans. From the head of the Igalilio-fjord, where 

 the bishop of the ancient colony is supposed to have resided, a valley pre- 

 senting low hills, plains and lakes runs across the peninsula that separates 

 this fjord from that of Lichtenau (a Moravian station), a distance of eight to 

 twelve miles. In the middle of this isthmus Holm discovered some ruins 

 of considerable extent, but with walls only rising a few feet above the 

 ground and overgrown by tufts of grass and willows. The environs of 

 these stone-heaps, the only monuments that are able to tell about inhabi- 

 tants whose final fate will forever remain a mystery, are described as very 

 picturesque. Luxuriant copses of Avillows and low birch border the lakes, 

 a magnificent waterfall is seen rushing over the rocky walls sprinkled 

 with green, and in the background the mountains of the Lichtenau-fjord 

 rear their tops into the air covered with perpetual snow and ice. 



As regards antiquities from the Eskimo period, Steenstrup has examined 

 a number of graves in the northern districts. Where natural masses of 

 stones were found, the cavities formed by them had generally been pre- 

 ferred as sepulchral rooms, but when these were lacking, the dead used 

 to be buried on the tops of the hills. In "Unknown Island" (latitude 71°) 

 a cemetery was found at a height of 640 feet and only accessible by a steep 

 and narrow path. The graves are built up with walls of stones, flat stones 

 used as a roof. Generally they offer room enough only for the corpse in 

 a bent position, but sometimes the dead are laid at full length. Often two 



