132 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



Let us turn now to the northern belt. During the fourteenth 

 century abundant storms and low temperature seem to have in- 

 creased the ice-pack on the coasts of southern Greenland so that 

 communication with Norway became extremely difficult. The 

 same causes, according to Pettersson, impoverished the settlers, 

 and diminished their numbers. Hence they were finally exter- 

 minated by the Eskimos, and the New World was lost for a while 

 to the white man. Previously the Eskimos appear to have been 

 a quiet folk living far to the north. The cold and storms of the 

 fourteenth century, however, apparently deprived them of the 

 means of livelihood. Thus they were driven south as raiders. 



In northwestern Europe similar untoward circumstances pre- 

 vailed. In Norway the cold stormy weather caused the crops 

 to decrease wofuUy. Northern provinces which had formerly been 

 able to export wheat now had to import it. The revenues fell off 

 60 to 70 per cent. In the wake of these disasters came great 

 political disorder. All sorts of extremes of climate occurred in 

 neighboring regions. According to Norlind's careful summary the 

 coldest winter ever known in northwestern Europe was 1323-4, — 

 just when the Caspian Sea rose most rapidly and the Big Trees 

 grew fastest. Horses as well as men were able to cross the Baltic 

 Sea from Germany to Sweden on the ice. The next three coldest 

 years were 1296, 1306, and then 1408. According to Petters- 

 son the fourteenth century shows "a record of extreme climatic 

 variations." The winters were so extraordinarily cold that the 

 Rhine, Danube, Thames, and Po were frozen for weeks and months, 

 a thing that almost never happens now. The cold winters were 

 followed by violent floods, which are recorded in fifty-five summers 

 in the fourteenth century. Of course the inundations of the great 

 rivers of Europe six or seven centuries ago must have been more 

 devastating than similar floods in our day when the flow of the 

 rivers is regulated by locks and canals. Still the floods of the 

 fourteenth century "must have surpassed everything of that kind 

 which has occurred since then. In 1342 the waters of the Rhine 



