The carrying out of the work was intrusted to Mr. O. B. 

 BöGGiLD, assistant at the Miueralogical Museum and tutor at the 

 К oval Polytechnic Academy. The hand-book being now placed 

 before the public it will be a suitable thing to give a brief 

 mention of the history of the mineralogical exploration of Green- 

 land, and of the development of the mineral collection which 

 has rendered it possible to make the hand-book appear in its 

 present completeness. 



The objection might be raised against such a hand-book, 

 that its contents must bear, to a high degree, the impress of 

 accidentality, because a thorough mineralogical exploration of 

 Greenland may be said as yet to be far from being carried 

 through, apart from a few small regions. Now it must be ad- 

 mitted that many mineralogical observations of great interest 

 may, no doubt, still be made in this island, the largest island 

 of the world; but on the other hand it may, surely, be said 

 that the general view of the mineralogical contents of Greenland 

 which we may form on the basis of the collections hitherto 

 made, must be regarded as upon the whole tolerably consistent 

 with the real facts. It is to be remembered that the part of 

 Greenland, which is free from ice, is only a strip of land, of 

 a breadth of 20 — 200 kms., and this strip is everywhere traversed 

 by fjords and sounds giving an excellent insight into the moun- 

 tainous country; in the colonized part of Greenland the tra- 

 vellers and scientific expeditions have explored the coasts of 

 almost all these waters, and many of them have been visited 

 several times. Further it must be pointed out that the surface 

 of the rocks in Greenland is only to a very slight degree hidden 

 by vegetation or loose deposits. And finally it is to be remem- 

 bered that the native population, however scarce in proportion 

 to the extent of the country, is possessed of a remarkable know- 

 ledge of the country; it may even be said that outside of the 

 territory of the ice the natives have roamed over almost every 

 part of the country, hunting being their most important busi- 



