GHRA ES EVIN‘ OLE ARNE D: CEXXXI 
During the long day of the fhort fummer is confiderable heat. The long Aurora Borza- 
winter is a little cheared by the Aurora Borealis, which appears and radiates with oe 
unufual brilliancy and velocity in the fpring, about the time of the new meon. 
Fogs give a gloom to the fummer, and froft-fmoke often adds horror to the winter. 
It rifes out of the opening of the ice in the fea, and peels off the very fkin from 
thofe who venture to approach it. The effeé&t of the froft is very violent on the 
human body ; but lefs fo than in the north-eaft of Sibiria, where at times it 
is fatal to ftir abroad, even when protected with every guard of cloathing *. 
The Greenlanders faftidioufly ftyle themfelves Innuit, i.e. men, as if they were 
the ftandard of the human race ; yet few of them attain the height of five feet ; 
but are well made. Their hair is long and black ; their faces flat; their eyes 
fmall. They are a branch of the E/Rimaux, the fmall race which borders all 
the Aréic coafts. They originated from the Samoied Afiatics, who, pafling over 
into the New World, have lined the coaft from Prince William’s Sound on the 
weftern fide, in lat. 61, quite to the fouthern part of Labrador on the eaftern. 
They crept gradually in their little canoes northward, and diminifhed in fize in 
their progrefs, till they attained their full degeneracy in the Efkimaux and Green- 
landers. Similar people, or veftiges of them, have been feen in different places, 
from Prince William’s Sound to the north of Berine’s ftreights. They were again 
feen by Mr. Hearne in lat. 72. By report of the Greenlanders of Difco bay, 
there are a few inhabitants in Baffin’s bay, in lat. 78. Egede fays, that the coun- 
try is peopled to lat. 76 +; but the higheft colonized {pot is at Noog/aod, in lat. 71. 
They area race made for the climate, and could no more bear removal to a tem- 
perate clime, than an animal of the torrid zone could into our unequal fky : 
feafons, and defect of habitual food, would foon bring on their deftruction. This 
race has been found to agree in manners, habits, and weapons, and in many 
inftances in language, from Prince William’s Sound to the end of Labrador, a trac 
extending near fifteen hundred leagues. They only line the coafts; forthe Indians 
perfecute them with mercilefs hatred, and almoft pufh them into the fea. They 
imagine thefe poor creatures to be magicians, and that to them they owe every ill 
fuccefs in life §, The numbers of the Greenlanders are now amazingly diminifhed. 
In 1730 there were thirty thoufand fouls, at prefent only ten thoufand ; a decreafe 
chiefly owing to the ravage of the fmall-pox. 
Greenland has been moft happy in its Zoologift. "The Reverend Mr. Otto Fa- 
bricius, whom a laudable zeal for enlightening the minds of the grofs inhabitants, 
© Voyage en Siberie, i. 3816 t As quoted in Green's map of America, t Coox’s Moy. i. 
Pref, Lxx1v. § Same, ii, 43. 
aa led 
