320 



NATURE 



[November 3, 1921 



The Danish Arctic Station. 



By Prof. A. C. Seward, F.R.S. 



T^HE Danish Arctic Station at Godhavn, on the ceives contributions from foreign institutions and from 



t XT u V'^^^^i ^\ Disco Island, off the west coast , individuals in return for papers published at the station 



of North Greenland (lat. 69° 14 N.), is not so well or for specimens. British authors whose work deals with 



known, at least to British scientific workers, as it [ subjects bearing upon Arctic problems will do good 



deserves to be. It is the only station in the world 

 within the Arctic Circle where it is possible under 

 very favourable conditions and with adequate facili- 



FlG. 



-The Arctic station, showing Archaean gneiss in the foreground and, behind, one of 'he 

 mountains carved out of the plateau of Tertiary basalt sheets and beds of tuff. 



ties to carry out experimental scientific investigations. 



In 1898 the present director, Mr. Morten P. 

 Porsild, on his return from an expedition under 

 the late Dr. K. J. V. Steenstrup, to which he 

 was attached as botanist, made an unsuccessful 

 attempt to induce the Danish Government to estab- 

 lish a station in Greenland. Some years later funds 

 were obtained from private sources, chiefly from Mr. 

 A. Hoick, of Copenhagen, and Mr. Porsild, with the 

 assistance of two Danish carpenters and some native 

 labourers, but largely with his own 

 hands, built the present station and 

 established himself there in 1906. 

 The Government at once took over 

 the station, with Mr. Porsild as 

 director, and made an annual grant 

 of 10,000 kronen to cover all expenses, 

 including the director's stipend. The 

 director for Greenland, at present Mr. 

 Daugaard-Jensen, an official who, 

 under the Minister of the Interior, is 

 responsible for Greenland affairs, has 

 the assistance of a Commission com- 

 posed of a few scientific men to advise 

 him on all matters connected with the 

 station. 



The station is about i km. from 

 Godhavn harbour, and is reached by 

 a road, probably the best road in 

 Greenland, made bv Mr. Porsild. 

 The station consists of a well-built 

 and exceptionally warm wooden 

 house of two stories approximately 20 by 10 metres 

 in plan. On the ground floor there is a well-equipped 

 laboratory and a dark room, a library containing 

 about 5500 books and pamphlets, and an excellent 

 herbarium of Arctic and some Alpine plants, and 

 living rooms ; on the first floor are two good bed- 

 rooms for visitors and a workroom. The library re- 

 NO. 2714, VOL. 108] 



service to science by sending reprints to the director. 



Near the main building is a large workshop, and 

 an adjacent stream provides an abundant supply of 

 excellent water. The station is built 

 on glacial sand at the foot of the 

 rounded hummocks of gneiss which 

 on this part of the coast form the 

 foothills in front of the terraced 

 basaltic cliffs rising to a height of 

 more than 2000 ft. (Fig. i). On the 

 seaward side the station faces Disco 

 Bay, with the Crown Prince Islands 

 in the distance, and in the foreground 

 there are always several icebergs 

 (Fig. 2) which have stranded on the 

 shore after drifting across the bay 

 from the large Jakobshavn ice-fjord. 

 The main objects Mr. Porsild had 

 in view in founding' the station were 

 to provide a base for a geographical 

 and geological survey of the country, 

 a centre from which to investigate 

 the fauna and flora of a particularly 

 rich Arctic region, and means for ex- 

 perimental work, both biological and 

 chemical. It would be difficult to find 

 a more suitable place as a training 

 school for men who wish to qualify 

 themselves for Arctic exploration, as in winter the 

 locality is particularly well situated for sledging and 

 ski-ing. The station's motor-boat is available for 

 expeditions and for marine investigations, while for 

 shorter trips, especially to places where the anchorage 

 is bad, visitors can hire a umyak (a long flat-bottomed 

 skin boat). 



Since 1908 there have been fourteen visitors to the 

 station from Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Switzer- 

 land, and America, who have resided there several 



Fig. 2. — View from the Arctic station. Icebergs stranded on the beach of Disco Bay. 



weeks or months, and many others for shorter 

 periods. Forty scientific papers on work done at 

 the station or dealing with material collected in ^he 

 neighbourhood have been published, and of these 

 twenty-five are by the director. 



As Greenland occupies an exceptional position as a 

 "closed" country, it is necessary for all foreigners, 



