LICHTENAU. 213 



By noon we had reached the island. Some natives, who 

 met us on the way, had, doubtless to the neglect of their 

 daily labour, preferred following us. 



The island, like the rest of Greenland, is entirely 

 barren and desolate, rather flat towards the north-east, 

 but rising in a hilly chain to the south-west. Nowhere 

 could we discover any trace of a building. One would 

 scarcely fancy that a monastery, according to our notions, 

 could in the course of time so utterly and entirely 

 disappear from the face of the earth. Only the suppo- 

 sition that the ancient Northmen erected their buildings 

 similarly to the missionaries of the present day, of wood, 

 and that when deserted by the inhabitants the natives 

 broke them up when necessary and carried them else- 

 where, could, give the statement of the Northman chro- 

 nicler any semblance of truth. 



The warm spring is, however, there. On the western 

 strand, scarce a gunshot from the shore, is a shallow basin 

 twenty feet in diameter and three feet deep, covered with 

 fine granitic sand. The water issues from the ground in 

 three places, emitting, at the same time, an odourless gas. 

 The temperature of the spring, according to my spirit 

 bulb thermometer, was 93° 87' Fahr. About twenty paces 

 westward, and somewhat higher, lies a second smaller 

 spring, which is deeper and full of stones. The whole 

 surface is covered thickly with a slimy, yellowish brown 

 deposit, evidently of vegetable origin. The temperature 

 of this spring I found to be 102° 87' Fahr. The water had 

 a slightly alkaline taste, and left a white precipitate. 

 The higher temperature of the soil, caused by the springs, 

 is shown by the fresh vegetation v/hich in a small circle 

 surrounds both basins, forming a pleasant contrast to the 



