TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 179 



the most erroneous impressions in regard to the temperature of that interesting and 

 wonderful country. Whether it is a continent, or numerous islands extending to the 

 North Pole, is a problem yet to be solved. In the southern portion we find green 

 valleys, covered with grass and vegetation, surrounded with mountains towering into 

 the heavens ; and these in the morning are covered with white glittering snow, which 

 with the mid-day sun disappears, leaving exposed their blackened minarets and spires. 

 The scenery is grand and picturesque. 



The coasts of Greenland are barren hills and mountains. Along the shore are 

 many islands. The fiords penetrate to the interior 10, 20, or 30 miles. Some of 

 these bring out ice, others do not. Into one of the fiords which are free of ice will 

 be carried the telegraph cable, as indicated in the map. The water is very deep, and 

 no iceberg can reach the bottom, or go far up their meanderings to their heads. 

 They do not freeze, except in narrow places, where there is still water. A cable can 

 be easily laid from the sea into one of these fiords, and when brought to land it can 

 be well secured against native ice, as is the case at many places in America, and on 

 the belts and sound of the Baltic Sea. 



The exact locality where the line is to cross Greenland has not been determined, 

 but it will be in the southern portion, not 60 miles north of Cape Farewell. The 

 particular kind of surface to be traversed — whether green valleys, or mountain ranges 

 — is not fully known, but in either case no insuperable difficulties can be foreseen. 

 What it is in the interior, or whether there be ice there or not, no one knows. 

 Col. S. found alluvial soil on the ice several miles distant from the sea, and it may 

 have been blown there from the interior. Some 12,000 deer are killed in the Holsten- 

 berg district every year. They disappear in winter. Whither do they go ? 



The ice travelled over by Colonel Shaffher was solid freshwater ice. The snow 

 falls in small quantities. On the plateau some considerable collections of water were 

 seen. There were many deep crevices. The thickness of the ice no one has been 

 able to determine. The author does not believe it entirely rests upon the earth, but 

 it forms bridges, and perhaps where he went it was 4000 feet above the level of the 

 sea ; or perhaps there was a cavern beneath, 1000 feet between the ice and the earth, 

 exceeding in grandeur the great Mammoth Cave of America, with its 200 subterranean 

 avenues. This may seem most wonderful, but he had many reasons for believing 

 that it was possible. He had been in some of the caverns, and heard a waterfall 

 resembling the rushing of a river over rocks. The bergs from the fiord blinks, he 

 noticed were clear and clean ice ; no gravel or earth either in or on them, excepting 

 those that were near the shore. If the ice were upon the earth in the interior, we 

 might expect to find some earth in the bergs. He has seen boulders on bergs, but 

 they came from the glaciers of the north, or from the sides of the blinks crushing 

 against the mountains as the ice moved from the interior. The inhabitants are Danes 

 and Esquimaux. The Julianahaab District is the most southern in Greenland, and 

 has about 2600 Esquimaux. They are all civilized, and mostly members of the 

 Lutheran Church. There are a few Moravians. The children are baptized, and at 

 fourteen years old confirmed. They have churches and schools, and they preach, 

 sing, and pray. In the principal churches they have organs and some fine paintings. 



The town of Julianahaab has about 300 inhabitants. The people received the 

 visit of the party last autumn with much joy. The houses were stone and frame, 

 and covered with slate. It is not cold enough for double windows. They had cows 

 and sheep. The Esquimaux lived in stone huts covered with earth, fully as com- 

 fortable as many log cabins that Colonel ShafFner has lived in when in the western 

 forests of America. 



The Esquimaux are honest and good-hearted. They never steal unless on the 

 verge of starvation. The men treat their wives well. The children aie never 

 whipped. Peace, love, and domestic happiness seem to be more common to them 

 than to the more civilized races. It will not be difficult to have a telegraph line 

 maintained in Greenland, with the aid of such people ; and, in fact, a telegraph 

 line can be constructed across the hills, the valleys, and the fiords of Greenland, and 

 it can be maintained thereafter with much more facility and certainty than has been 

 done across the plains of Russia, the mountains of Norway, the swamps of New- 

 foundland, the inundated lands of the Mississippi, the uninhabited forests of America, 

 or the Alpine ranges of Europe. 



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