E.— GEOGRAPHY. 95 



other countries. But if his conclusions are true, that a low mean daily 

 temperature is more conducive to high mental energy than a high or even 

 moderate one, then we can be sure that the Arctic colonists will not at 

 least suffer intellectual degeneration. On the other hand, those of us 

 who have experienced the extraordinary physical energy which is one of 

 the joys of life in polar climates must be a little sceptical of Huntington's 

 further conclusion that a mean daily temperature of about 64° is the 

 optimum for physical activity. That figure would appear to be too high, 

 but of course it represents a value that is extraordinarily difficult to 

 measure. 



The only example of real Arctic colonisation that exists is that of the 

 old Norse colonies in south-western Greenland founded in the tenth 

 centurv. At their height the two colonies must have contained between 

 2000 and 3000 people, men, women, and children, scattered in about 

 280 farms, where they kept cattle, goats, sheep, and horses, perhaps 

 raised a few poor crops of little account, and hunted bears, reindeer, and 

 seals. There is no need to recall the history of these settlements, how 

 trade with Europe gradually ceased and how the Norsemen had entirely 

 disappeared when late in the sixteenth century communications with 

 Greenland were reopened. 



Recent Danish researches at Herjolfsnes, near Cape Farewell, have 

 discredited the old belief that the colonies disappeared either by Eskimo 

 extermination or by fusion with the Eskimo races. 16 It now seems clear, 

 at least as regards Oesterbygd, that the Norse race maintained its racial 

 purity and did not ' go native.' The general reluctance of the Nordic 

 races to mix with widely divergent stock was as noticeable then as it has 

 been in later centuries. Examination of skeletons in the churchyard of 

 Herjolfsnes reveals the interesting facts that while clothes and ornaments, 

 in graves of the fifteenth century, show little trace of Eskimo influence, 

 the skeletons all show signs of rickets or other malformations and stunted 

 growth, but no sign of racial mixture with the Eskimo. There is also a 

 very high proportion of remains of infants and young people. Evidently, 

 therefore, the Norse colonies, at least Oesterbygd, perished by exhaustion. 

 Even if the climate were changing for the worst during the existence of 

 these colonies — and such a change is by no means proved — there is no 

 reason to suppose that the habitual meat diet failed. The cessation of 

 communications with Europe cannot have affected the diet of the colonists 

 to any great extent. The King's Mirror, describing conditions when the 

 colonies were prosperous, notes that most of the settlers did not know 

 what bread was. And what else could they get from Europe to vary their 

 meat diet ? 



The conclusion is, therefore, that the Norse colonists in Greenland 

 died out for want of new blood, or, in other words, that they were not 

 acclimatised to their Arctic home. From this it might be argued that 

 even the Nordics can never colonise the Arctic. Certainly no other race 

 from temperate climates is likely to try, since the Nordics alone show that 

 distaste for gregariousness and that capacity for enduring solitude which 



16 See papers by P. Norlund, F. C. C. Hansen, and F. Jonsson in Meddelelser om 

 Cronland, LXVII (1924), and by D. Brunn, ditto, LVII (1918). 



