HISTORY. 
Rep Erik, the first European colonist in Greenland, in the 
year 983 settled down in Tunugdliarfik Fjord, the longest of 
the fjords near Julianehaab, and it was from the same fjord 
that his son Lei sailed when he discovered America. But the 
old Norse colony which Rep Erik founded, perished in the six- 
teenth century, and since then for more than two hundred years 
the southernmost part of Greenland was scarcely visited by Eu- 
ropeans as the new colonisation was confined to the more easily 
accessible tracts further to the north-west. Not until the year 
1775 was the settlement of Julianehaab founded. 
We owe our first knowledge of the mineralogy and geology 
of the country around Julianehaab to C.L. блезескЕ who visited 
this district in 1806 and 1809. Guesecke’s diary’ shows that 
he made himself fairly well acquainted with the whole of the 
area which will be described in the present paper, its peculiar 
minerals and rocks having attracted his attention to a high 
degree. We are indebted to him for excellent collections of 
minerals including several which were then new to science: 
arfvedsonite, sodalite, and eudialyte. Moreover, he was the first 
to give a description of the red sandstone of Igaliko which he 
compares with the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland. But owing 
to the deficient knowledge of that time with regard to igneous 
rocks his descriptions of the nepheline-syenite and of the geo- 
logical structure of the country are of limited value. Some 
varieties of the nepheline-syenite he regards as a kind of ‘‘mica- 
slate”, but others are correctly interpreted as a ‘‘syenite” which 
1 Greseckes Mineralogisches Reisejournal. Meddelelser om Grønland, 
XXXV, pp. 15, 29—39, 211—220 (1910). 
For an account of the mineralogical collections which have been 
made from time to time in the district of Julianehaab, see ‘‘Meddelelser 
om Grønland”, XXXII, pp. IX—XIX (1905). 
