158 DANIEL BRUUN. 
not split before use — it was the natural stoneblocks, large and small, 
that were used, and which had to be selected for the use they were in- 
tended for. 
It had been comparatively easy to find the stones, they needed 
in the vieinity of the ruins where there had been a variety of stones, 
which through precipitation and disintegration were split into fairly 
sharp flakes, In the regions where the red sandstone is found, 
for instance in Tunugdharfikfiord, it has even been possible to build 
walls with tolerably horizontal furrows, it was the same case with 
granit, which splits into sharp pieces, being excellent building material. 
In the places where such stones were not to be found one had to 
be content with inferior material, which could not be of the same 
durability. 
In Godthaab’s district one cannot find such good building material 
of stone, therefore the houses in the western settlement are more often 
built of grass turf and earth, than in Julianehaab’s district, and on that 
account they are more delapidated. 
In a country like Greenland where the effects of cold and wind were 
so perceptible and where chiefly no other building material was to be 
found, with the exception of a little drifting timber and birch tree, the 
use of stone walls with earth or grass-turf tightening must have had its 
advantages, especially in the dwelling houses and the stables for cows, 
sheep, goats and horses, where it was of importance to procure warm. 
compartments. The necessity of such means of tightening could hardly 
be expected to appear in the houses which were appointed to be the depo- 
sitory for stores, provisions and hay for the cattle during the winter, 
besides blubber, fish, hides, skins ete. Amongst the ruins in each group 
the greatest part is found to have been built in the first manner mentioned, 
therefore they have become such ruins, whilst a fewer number of out- 
houses have either had no tightening at all between the stones or in any 
case so slight an amount that it has been difficult to recognize it. The 
latter sort of houses are the best preserved, and those which strike the 
eye first when one approaches the groups of ruins. Besides the houses a 
number of enclosures are found, mostly erected only of stone, these 
have long ago been acknowledged as cattle-folds. Finally fences are 
found, round the homefields, made of earth or of earth and stones. 
‘ven if the outside walls of the houses could be erected of stone, 
grass or earth-turf, one would however be obliged to use a great deal 
of timber for the inside and the roof. Very few trees grew in the country 
itself, a great deal of drifting timber was picked up on the coasts in the 
neighbourhood of the colonies, otherwise it was procured as we have heard, 
on the long summer expeditions to the north, likewise one could import 
wood from Norway as long as communication by sea was maintained. 
Through the excavations in the sites of the houses in Greenland a 
great deal of charcoal has been found by which one has been able to decide 
