THE DAXrSIf ARCTIC STATION AT GODIIAVN 



587 



but Elgstroiii found so imicli of interest 

 tlint he lias ])ul)lishe(l a highly eiiter- 

 tainini;- hook as a i-csuh of his studies. 

 Under the eneoura,<ienient of Hcrr Por- 

 sild a nuniher of l^skinios at (iodliavn 

 are atteuiptiii,!;' to ])ortray their life and 

 envininnicnt in wati'r eoUn' and erayon ; 

 thi'y (h) very wi-ll eonsidering that they 

 must develop their own teehniqnc with- 

 out any instruction or guidance. 



That Herr Porsild is thorough in his 

 methods of training young would-])e 

 Arctic scientists, no better evidence is 

 needed than the record that T^iauge 

 Koch has made as an associate of Knud 

 Rasmussen. Except for the summer 

 that Koch spent with Ilerr Porsild on 

 Disco Island, he had had no field train- 

 ing whatever until he accompanied 

 Kasmussen by dog sledge from Hol- 

 stensborg to Xorth Star Bay. Although 

 a novice at sledge work, he drove his 

 own team of dogs the latter half of the 

 trail, lived almost exclusively on seal 

 and walrus meat for a month after hav- 

 ing just left the "fleshpots"' of Den- 

 mark, and successfully completed a 

 most careful survey of the entire shore 

 of Melville Bay. 



Xow word comes from Greenland 

 that Koch survived a journey wdiich 

 was too much for so experienced and 

 tried a traveler as Dr. Thorild Wulff ; — 

 not only survived the journey, but 

 achieved the most important results at- 

 tained by the party. Herr Porsild said 

 last summer while I was his guest, 

 "Oh. Koch will come out all right ! He 

 learned here how to adapt himself to 

 difficult conditions. He found out that 

 Arctic exploration is no child's play, 

 when he was here with me; I sent him 

 out on several long tours with Eskimos 

 with whom he could converse only by 

 signs, with barely enough food to get 

 back safe, and to places where the mos- 

 quitoes almost ate him alive. And yet 

 he always did what he set out to do, al- 

 though I must say there were times 

 when he looked a little rebellious." 



The work accomplished by Herr Por- 



sild and the otlier men who have made 

 the station their base is extensive. Herr 

 Porsild has already published many 

 important ])apers, not only in botany, 

 hut in zoology, anthroi)ology, ethnology, 

 and divers other sciences. He has com- 

 pleted exhaustive studies of the flora 

 and the vegetation of the west Green- 

 land coast; he has studied the habits of 

 the Arctic salmon, of the caribou, of 

 the narwiial ; he has investigated many 

 of the old Eskimo ruins and kitchen 

 middens, and delved deep into former 

 and present arts and customs of the 

 Eskimo; and he knows the history and 

 geography of Greenland as no one else 



I'liotoiiraph by E. O. Ilovey 

 Two native Greenland women living at God- 

 havn. — Their richly adorned trousers and boots 

 are almost their chief pride. Usually they wear 

 also a heavy bead collar of complicated design 

 that extends down over the breast, shoulders, 

 and back 



