DESCRIPTION OF GREENLAND. 241 



which is the coast of America. Having left there, he found 

 a large island on the north-west, which he called Sncoeuland, 

 or the island of snow, because it was covered with snow. 

 The twentieth of August he took his course from the west 

 to the north, " And then," says the narrator, " I kept my 

 own route at the elevation of sixty-two degrees twenty 

 minutes." But the fogs were so thick that they saw no land. 

 "Although," says he, " the breadth of Christian Strait was 

 only sixteen leagues in this part." This leads us to suppose 

 that it is larger in other parts. He entered the strait in 

 Hudson's Sea, the name of which he changed, as he had 

 done that of the strait, and gave it two for one. He called 

 that part of this sea which is opposite America, Mare Novum, 

 and that which is opposite Greenland, Mare Christianum. 

 if, indeed, this coast ought to be called Greenland. He kept 

 as much as possible to the west north-west route, until he had 

 reached the elevation of sixty-three degrees twenty minutes, 

 where the ice arrested his progress and obliged him to winter 

 on the coast of Greenland, at a port which he called Munck- 

 enes Vinterhaven or the port of Munck's winter ; and called 

 the country New Denmark. He does not mention in his 

 narrative many places that he passed in going to this port, 

 because he says he has made a map of them, to which he 

 refers the reader. He only mentions two islands in the 

 Christian Sea, which he calls the Sister Islands, and another 

 larger one near the New Sea, which he calls Dixe's Oeu- 

 land. He advises those who navigate Christian's Strait to 

 keep as much as possible in the middle of the strait, on 

 account of the rapid and contrary currents which are found 

 on both of these coasts by the opposite tides of the two seas, 

 the Ocean and the Christian Sea, the ice of which being extra- 

 ordinarily thick, the blocks dash against each other with such 

 violence that the vessels that are between them are irreparably 

 shattered. He says that the ebbing of the Christian Sea 



