Preface. 



In 1900, the "Commission for the Direction of the Geo- 

 logical and Geographical Exploration of Greenland" asked for the 

 cooperation of the Mineralogicai Museum for the purpose of 

 preparing a Mineralogia groenlandica , which was to give an 

 exhaustive record of our present knowledge to the minerals of 

 Greenland, and thus become a hand-book, not only for travellers 

 in Greenland, but also for mineralogists and museums. 



The preparation of such a copious topographical mineralogy 

 of Greenland did not only require a collocation of the numerous 

 informations of Greenland minerals scattered in the literature, 

 but for a great part it had to be based on a systematic study 

 of the collections in the Mineralogical Museum of Copenhagen; 

 for through more than 100 years an extensive and unique ma- 

 terial from almost every part of Greenland has been collected 

 in this museum, and, until 1900, great part of this material 

 had been only cursorily looked over. 



The Mineralogia groenlandica, therefore, would necessarily 

 in some respects become a first-hand work, a publication of 

 new observations; even with regard to the minerals that had 

 already been thoroughly described, a revision was often required, 

 especially with regard to the statements of the localities, which, 

 in the old literature, are upon the whole deficient or have been 

 misunderstood 



