An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 87 
Greenland South of Melville Bay. 
The Polar Eskimo represent the most Arctic grade of Eskimo culture, 
in so far as they live farthest towards the north, and have been in the 
highest degree dependent on hunting on ice. In former days there lived 
here a “coastal tribe” which was dependent on aquatic mammals for its 
means of subsistence, but nevertheless used no kinds of water-craft, which 
should not, however, be understood to mean that it had never known 
water-craft, but that it had been possible for them to forget the use of 
them. 
When passing along the west coast of Greenland southwards, from 
the long and uninhabited Melville Bay, filled with glaciers, one comes to 
a stretch of coast about 2,800 kilometres in length, fairy evenly populated, 
which proceeds in a direction approximately from north to south, from the 
northernmost settlement situated about 73° N. lat. to Cape Farewell situated 
about 60° N. lat. Along this stretch of coast the transition from the Arctic 
to the Subaretie climate is accomplished by degrees, and in the economic 
culture, likewise, a gradual ‘change takes place from the Arctic to the Sub- 
arctic — from the predominating hunting on sea-ice to the predominating 
hunting from boats. In the district of Upernivik, that is in the northern- 
most regions, the conditions are yet more distinctly Arctic in character, 
while they are far from being so farthest towards the south. Even Rink, 
in his description of Greenland, pointed out and explained that it was 
possible to distinguish between a northern and a southern form of Eskimo 
culture in Danish West Greenland. Just as there, a boundary line must be 
drawn between the northern and southern form, or between the Arctic and 
the Subarctic economic culture, near Holsteinsborg, immediately north of 
the Arctic Circle, or at the southern limit for the use of the dog sledge. 
In geological and geographical respects West Greenland reminds us by 
‘its predominant gneiss and granite formations, its deep branching fjords 
and its numerous rocky isles and ranges of skerries, of the west coast of 
Norway. Peculiar to Greenland, however, is the land-ice of immense 
dimensions which only leaves a narrow line of coast, the so called “Yder- 
land” (maritime country), free from ice, and the great glaciers which descend 
from the land-ice and empty themselves into the ice-fjords, encumbering the 
sea with floating icebergs. On the southern part of the coast the glaciers 
are generally small and few in comparison with the great glaciers which 
descend to Disco and Umanak Bays, and to the coast near Upernivik. As 
a set-off, the south coast, and especially the stretch of coast along the 
district of Julianehaab, has the peculiarity that every spring it is blocked by 
“Storisen”, that is, by Polar sea-ice which the East-Greenland current carries 
south of Cape Farewell. Thus this “Storis’, of which a crowd of floes 
remain, as a rule, until August, when it disperses and gives place to open 
water, is, during a great part of the summer, a decided hindrance to 
navigation along the southernmost part of Greenland’s west coast. 
