January 13, 192 1] 



NATURE 



647 



Bulletin No. i gives an account of the methods which 

 were actually used by the forest ofiicers in charge of 

 the survey. These methods are based on the measure- 

 ment of well-stocked sample plots of woods of various 

 ages and on all classes of soils. Five working parties 

 were employed, the actual measurements being made 

 bv women assistants under the supervision of a skilled 

 officer who inspected the woods and selected the plots. 

 This bulletin is clearly written, and will prove useful 

 to private owners wishing to lay out sample plots 

 b) means of which they will be enabled to measure 

 the volume and increment of their own woods by 

 official and scientific methods. 



The third bulletin deals with the results of the 

 survey which was restricted to pure woods of conifers. 

 It furnishes us for the first time with accurate yield- 

 fables of larch, Scots pine, and spruce based on 

 accurate measurements of these species in British 

 plantations. Hitherto we were dependent on Con- 

 tinental yield-tables, which apply only very approxi- 

 mately to this country. Provisional tables for Douglas 

 fir, Japanese larch, and Corsican pine are also given 

 in the bulletin. The yield-tables are of the usual 

 kind, giving for various qualities of soils the average 

 height and diameter of the trees and the number of 

 stems and volume of timber per acre, with other 

 figures, corresponding to ages of lo, 15, 20, . . . 

 100 vears. Any wood, provided its age is known, 

 can be allocated to its proper quality class by the 



average height of the trees, as it is well established 

 that in a fully stocked wood of any species the volume 

 at a given age is in direct relation with the mean 

 height. 



A considerable part of Bulletin No. 3 is taken up 

 with a discussion on the factors of climate and soil in 

 relation to the growth of species, like Scots pine, 

 larch, and spruce. This branch of the subject is very 

 important, and deserves much more extended inves- 

 tigation than was possible in this preliminary survey. 

 Bulletin No. 2, prepared by Dr. J. W. Munro, the 

 entomologist employed by the Forestry Commission, 

 is based on a survey of the insect conditions of 

 ; coniferous woods in seventeen districts of the United 

 ; Kingdom in 19 19. This survey was rendered neces- 

 sary bv th« great increase in harmful insects occa- 

 ' sioned by the heavy fellings of timber during the 

 '■ years of the war. Owing to the shortage of labour 

 ! it was impossible to clear the ground of the branches 

 ' and debris which, with the stumps of the trees, form 

 ' (he main breeding-grounds of these pests. Dr. Munro 

 ! investigated the ravages of fifteen species of insects, 

 and reports that coniferous woods generally are in a 

 very unhealthy state. Young plantations on the site 

 of, or near, a felled area suffer most. This bulletin 

 is well illustrated, and Dr. Munro's remarks on 

 measures of prevention should be studied carefully by 

 all foresters engaged in the formation of now 

 plantations. 



Greenland in Europe.' 

 By David MacRitchie. 



AT the present day the name " Greenland " is 

 limited to the great island lying to the east of 

 -■Vrctic America. Formerly, however, it included an 

 undefined territory of Arctic ana sub-Arctic Europe, 

 extending eastward, according to some estimates, into 

 north-western Siberia. Sir William Martin Conway 

 has shown (Hakluyt Series, 1904) that during the 

 seventeenth century, in Britain and the neighbouring 

 countries, " Greenland " primarily denoted Spitsbergen. 

 Kven in the year 1812 the leading London pub- 

 lishers were selling a school-book which, ignoring the 

 word "Spitsbergen " altogether, applied to that group 

 of islands the sole name of "Greenland." 



But so early as the time of the Norman conquest 

 of England a German chronicler, a minor canon of 

 the Cathedral of Bremen, widely known as " .Adam 

 of Bremen," had recorded the existence of a Green- 

 land in Northern Europe. There is good reason for 

 assuming that the region he had in view was the Kola 

 Peninsula aixl a good deal of contiguous territory. 

 He stales that those Greenlanders were caeiidei (blue 

 men), and that they were cruel, "troubling seafarers 

 by predatory attacks" — from which it may be inferred 

 that they were themselves seafarers. In passing, it 

 may be pointed out that at a very much earlier date 

 the Romans had noted the existence of a caste of 

 caerulei in the British Isles. In both cases the name 

 probably arose from the custom of painting or tattoo- 

 ing with blue pigments. 



The assumption that Adam of Bremen's "Grcen- 

 l;md " was the Kola Peninsula and the parts adjoin- 

 ing receives confirmation from a statement made in 

 I410 by a Danish traveller and writer of the name of 

 Claus Clausson. Latinised Claudius Clavus; for he 

 tells u<. from personal knowledge, that at that time 

 " the Infidrl K.irelians daily come to Greenland in 

 great armies." The Karelians, or Karels, a Finnish 



I Syaofnia of ■ j»p<r mdb«rartih< BritiOi AuocUliwi (Aalkropalogiat' 

 S«clwn)ai Cardiff on AngnM it. 'fa. 



NO. 2672, VOL. 106] 



people, occupied most of the south-western shores of 

 the White Sea in the fourteenth century. In the 

 fifteenth century they ousted the Lapps from their 

 homes on the western shore of the White Sea, driv- 

 ing them north into the Kola Peninsula. The country 

 thus taken possession of by the Karels is now known 

 as Karelia. But the name applied to it by Claudius 

 Clavus was "Greenland." 



To make it quite clear that Clavus referred solely 

 to a European country when he spoke of "Green- 

 land," it is necessary to keep in view the fact that 

 in 1430 there was no European intercourse with the 

 Greenland on the other side of the North .Xtlantic. 

 The situation is definitely explained by Dr. Nansen, ' 

 who states (" Encyc. Brit.," eleventh edition, vol. xii., 

 pp. 542 and 54S) that the last ship known to h.ivc 

 visited the Norse colony in trans-.Atlantic Greenland 

 returned to Norway in 14 10, and that from that date 

 until 15S5 the overseas Gr<-cnland was unvisited by 

 Europeans and almost forgotten. It is therefore 

 manifest that when any trustworthy writer of the 

 period 1410-1585 makes reference to Greenlanders 

 as people with whom Europeans are then in 

 contact, he has in view a North European race, 

 and not .a race living on the other si<le of thi- 

 .■\tlantic. 



.'\ further statement by Clavus has a distinct bear- 

 ing upon this question. He tells us that to the west 

 of the wild Lapps " are little pygmies, whom I have 

 seen after they were taken at sea in a little skin- 

 boat, which is now [about 14^0] hanging in the 

 cathedral at Nidaros fi.c. Trondhjem). There is like- 

 wise n long vessel of hides, which was also once 

 taken with such pygmies in it." .Again, Olaus 

 .Magnus relates how in 1505 he .saw two of the leather 

 skiffs of " the Greenland pirates " hanging in the 

 cathedral at Oslo (Chriitianin). .Xnd Jacob Ziegler, 

 in his work " Srondia " (1532), speaks of the "light 

 boats of hi<le " of the Greenlandetfc .N complaint 



