154 



Søren Hansen. 





Men 



^^'^omen 



Women per 

 1000 men 



Children . . 



99 

 146 



128 

 175 



1293 



Adults 



1199 



Total. . 



245 



303 



1237 



In spite of the small figures, Î cannot look upon this phenome- 

 non as a pure coincidence. It must be admitted that it may well 

 be ascribed to a false estimate of the age of the different persons — 

 if only a few young men had been reckoned as boys and a few 

 girls as adult women, the proportion would not have been so re- 

 markable ; nevertheless the figures seem to show that the difference 

 between the number of men and the number of women is due 

 rather to peculiar characteristics of race, than to the different 

 mortality of the two sexes depending on their pursuits. 



This view of the case, moreover, receives weighty confirmation 

 from the information we possess as to the state of things on the 

 West coast at the time when the comparatively unmixed population 

 living there in those days approached the East Greenlanders in 

 habits and conditions of life much closer than now-a-days. In 1762 

 Cranz put the proportion between men and women in the German 

 communities of South Greenland at 1000 : 1348, and at the beginning 

 of this century there were in the whole of South Greenland about 

 1500 women to every 1000 men, while in the last half century in 

 the whole of West Greenland there have only been between 1100 

 and 1150, rather more in the southern than in the northern district 

 of inspection. 



Unfortunately it was not possible during the short stay the 

 Expedition made on the coast to gather together sufficient materials 

 to form an estimate of mortality, the only safe means of deter- 

 mining the question, and so we shall have to be content for the 

 present, and perhaps for good, with the facts given above. 



The opinion which people used commonly to entertain as to 

 the tallness of the East Greenlanders, as compared with the popula- 

 tion on the West coast, has been shown by the measurements 

 taken by the Expedition of a fairly large number of men and wo- 

 men — 136 in all — to have been somewhat exaggerated. As far 

 as anything can be gathered from a comparison of the material at 

 our disposal with the measurements which had been taken on the 



