Implements and Artefacts of the North-east Greenlanders. 431 



meteoric origin. 1 Judging from the conditions existing north of Mel- 

 ville Bay he supposed it to be of meteoric origin, as was also at that 

 time the belief concerning the detached pieces of iron found in West 

 Greenland- 



The geologist Dr. K. I. V. STEENSTRUP has since proved the tel- 

 luric origin of the West-Greenland iron 2 , and at Eqaluit in Uma- 

 naq fjord he was so fortunate as to come across a grave with a rich 

 find comprising among other things for instance men's knives of 

 this kind and women's knives with similarly constructed cutting 

 edge - - the material for these edges, viz. nine small balls of tellu- 

 ric iron. 3 



Since the cutting edges of the knives found by excavation in 

 West Greenland are, as mentioned above, often missing, it is of in- 

 terest that there are other points which suggest their connection 

 with telluric iron; for instance, the localities in which the latter was 

 found and those in which the knives were discovered correspond 

 very closely. Telluric iron has hitherto been found in the region 

 extending from the district of Umanaq (Eqaluit about 70 l k N. lat.) 

 in the north to Jakobshavn (69 13' N. lat.) in the south and on Disco 

 Island further w r est, moreover, quite isolated far to the south at Fisker- 

 nsesset (63 5'). 4 An investigation of the 28 knives of known origin 

 in the National Museum shows that the 24 came from the region bet- 

 ween Umanaq in the north and the island Gronne Eyland (68 51') in 

 the south 5 and that one comes from Fiskernsesset, just the same 

 isolated locality mentioned above where detached pieces of iron have 

 been found. The three other knives have been found further to the 

 north, in the district of Upernivik as far as 73 31' (Ivtidliarsuk). Be- 

 sides the knives mentioned above, eight knives are labelled "North 

 Greenland", precise locality not stated; on the other hand, from 

 the whole of South Greenland there is only the knife from Fisker- 

 nsesset. 



The cutting edge of the bone knives of West Greenland, in those 

 specimens where it has been preserved, is invariably of iron. As 

 prototype for the cutting edge formed by a series of slightly over- 

 lapping iron lamellae JAP. STEENSTRUP, in the paper cited above, 

 suggests the shark's tooth knife, the large, wooden knife with cut- 

 ting edge or edges - - both single and double-edged specimens oc- 

 cur - - made of the row of teeth from the lower jaw of the shark 



1 ,,Fer natif ou meteorique" (cf. JAP. STEENSTRUP, p. 244). 2 K. I. V. STEENSTRUP II, 

 pp. 113 et seq. 3 Loc. cit, p. 121 and K. I. V. STEENSTRUP I, p. 23. * B0G- 

 GILD, pp. 11 et seq. 5 To these may be added a knife from Hunde Eyland r 

 which is situated at the same latitude as Gr0nne Eyland mentioned by B0GGir,i> 

 on p. 25. 



