DESCllirnON OF GllEENLAND. 205 



horn at St. Denis came originally from the same place, and 

 was sold in this manner. I am afraid to say how long it is 

 since I have seen it ; but if I am not mistaken in the faint 

 recollection I still have of it, it is a tooth like those we saw 

 in Denmark, for it has the same root as the others. Its root 

 is hollow and decayed at the end, like a bad tooth. If this 

 be the case, I maintain that it is a tooth, which has fallen 

 naturally from the jaw of the fish which the Icelanders call 

 narhual, and that it is not a horn. 



To return to Greenland. The Icelandic Chronicle states, 

 that the air there is softer and more temperate than in Nor- 

 way, that it snows less, and that the cold is not so severe. 

 This does not mean that it does not sometimes freeze very 

 hard, and that there are not very violent storms ; but that 

 severe cold and those tremendous storms happen very sel- 

 dom and do not last long. The Danish Chronicle remarks 

 as a strange thing, that in the year 1308 fearful claps of 

 thunder were heard in Greenland, and that fire from heaven 

 fell upon a church called Skalholt, which was entirely burnt ; 

 and that after the thunder and fire there arose a severe tem- 

 pest, which hurled down the tops of several rocks, and ashes 

 flew out from these broken rocks in such abundance, that 

 they thought God had sent them to punish the people of the 

 country. This tempest was followed by so severe a winter, 

 that there was never known one to equal it in Greenland, 

 and the ice remained for a whole year without melting. 

 When I related the wonder of this shower of ashes to the 

 ambassador, he told me that, being at La Rochelle, a sea 

 caj)tain who had returned from the Canaries assured him, 

 while they were at anchor six leagues from these islands, 

 there was a similar shower of ashes fell on the roads where 

 they were lying, and that his vessel was covered with them 

 just as though snow had fallen on it ; that this terrific storm 

 was caused by an earthquake, which shook some volcanos 

 which are in the Canaries, and the wind had thrown the 



