THE WEST COAST OF GREENLAND. 3 



the highest points of land in that region. In Greenland, it may be 

 remarked, there are few high elevations. " Greenland's icy moun- 

 tains " are to some extent a hymnal myth ! Scoresby's Sound is an 

 unexplored inlet of perhaps an extent even greater than any of those 

 named. Davy Sound may also prove to be an extensive northern 

 tributary of Scoresby's Sound. 



South of Knighton Bay, until we come to the "White Saddle 

 Island in lat. 65°, we may be said to know nothing of the coast. 

 Here and there a cape has been sighted and a name applied to it ; 

 and practically a dotted line might fitly express all the exact know- 

 ledge which we possess in regard to it. From lat. 65° to Cape 

 Farewell, the southern termination of the country, the coast has 

 been laid down from the sketches of the old Norsemen, and from 

 the observations of Graah and others, who went in search of the 

 " lost colonies," believed, but erroneously, to have been situated, up 

 to the period of the Middle Ages, on the south-eastern portion of 

 Greenland. 1 The coast-line is broken by fjords, with very few 

 islands lying off their mouths. 



2. West Coast. — Cape Farewell (called by the Greenlanders 

 Kangehjadleh, or the cape running to the westward) is on a small 

 island (Sermilik). From this point up lat. 73° 40' (Tessiussak or 

 Kingatok) the coast has been more or less perfectly surveyed. Of 

 the southern harbours and inlets we indeed possess "some excellent 

 charts by the Danish naval surveyors. At all events, no important 

 points in its geography are unknown, and it may be said that, for all 

 geographical purposes, the west coast of Greenland is perfectly well 

 known within the limits of the Danish possessions. Its general 

 character is much the same as the rest of the Greenland continent 

 — not overlaid by ice — and will be described, so far as the nature 

 of this memoir requires, in a subsequent section (p. 29). Sukker- 

 toppen (" the sugar-loaf") and Sanderson's Hope (Kasorsoak) are 

 about the highest points of the coast. 



North of these limits the unexplored or imperfectly known 

 region commences. The bottom of Alelvillo Bay is, for instance, 

 entirely unknown. Great glaciers, fjords, and islands — one of 

 which is said to constitute that pillar-like land to the entrance of 

 the bay known as the Devil's Thumb — will most likely bo found 

 to be the prevailing character of the coast. The bottom of few, if 

 any, of the inlets north of this are known, and the outer coast-line 

 very imperfectly. How much, or how little, we know of Smith 



1 The " Oster Bygfl " has now been proved to have been on the wesl 



coast. 



b 2 



