vi PREFACE 



would in all probability have remained unful- 

 filled. 



Mr R. E. Holttum of St John's College, who 

 has recently been appointed Assistant Director of 

 the Singapore Botanic Garden, accompanied me 

 as Research Assistant and fully justified the high 

 opinion I had previously formed of his keenness 

 and ability as a botanist. I am grateful to him for 

 many services in addition to those of a strictly 

 scientific nature. To Mr Daugaard-Jensen, the 

 Director for Greenland, and to many Danish 

 officials resident in Greenland I am indebted for 

 much willingly-rendered assistance. In a land 

 where there are no hotels or guest-houses a foreign 

 visitor is necessarily dependent on private hos- 

 pitality, and this was generously extended to us. 

 My indebtedness to Mr Morten Porsild, the 

 Director of the Danish Arctic Station, cannot be 

 adequately expressed. 



In the following pages, the publication of which 

 I will not attempt to justify, my aim has been to 

 avoid technical details as far as possible and to 

 confine myself to a general, and necessarily very 

 incomplete, treatment of the botany and geology of 

 the country; but as the object of the journey was 

 scientific preference is given to natural history 

 subjects. I have not attempted to deal other than 

 very superficially with the history of Greenland, 

 with the present system of government, or with 

 the life of the people. My own observations and 

 impressions have been supplemented by facts ob- 

 tained from some of the excellent contributions to 



