CHAPTER II 



Yes, as I often think, it is not the poetical imagination, but 

 bare science that every day more and more unrolls a greater 

 Epic than the Iliad ; the history of the world, the infinitude 

 of space and time !...it is in itself more wonderful than all the 

 conceptions of Dante and Milton. FITZGERALD. 



Greenland a land of sunshine. Physical features and scraps of 

 geological history. Evidence from fossil plants of warmer climates 

 in the past. A limitless desert of ice; glaciers and icebergs. 



^ II ^O most people Greenland suggests 'icy moun- 

 JL tains,' barrenness, and barbarous natives, a 

 conception resting upon a basis of fact, but which 

 does scant justice to a land characterised by 

 grandeur of scenery and by features of exceptional 

 interest to a student of evolution in the widest 

 sense, nor is it just to the natives whom to know is 

 to appreciate and admire. 



As early as the thirteenth century an account 

 was written by a learned Norseman whose name 

 is not revealed 1 in a work entitled Konungs Skuggsja 

 (The King's Mirror\ which shows that many cen- 

 turies ago the more striking characteristics of 

 Greenland were not unknown. This account is in 

 the form of a dialogue between a father desirous 

 of imparting information and a son whose function 

 it is to stimulate the father by apposite questions. 

 Fact and fancy both have a place in the volume 2 . 



1 Some suggestions as to the author's name and the date of the 

 MS will be found in Dr Nansen's book, In Northern Mists. 



2 The translation, from the old Norwegian, from which the 

 following extracts are taken is by Prof. Larson of Illinois and was 

 published in 1917 under the title The Kings Mirror. 



