354 W. Thalbitzer 



Ammassalik district. Within this, between N ordre- Aputitek and Ser- 

 milik, both small houses and long-houses have been found side by 

 side. It seems as if a gradual transition has taken place from the 

 smaller type to the larger, the latter being a specialized form which 

 has developed in a part of Greenland where the social and economic 

 conditions have assumed a peculiar character. 



The ground-plan of the house is approximately rectangular, but 

 the back wall is somewhat longer than the front wall; the difference 

 is sometimes fairly considerable (see the Table, houses Nos. XII 

 and XIII). The width (depth) of the house is sometimes larger than 

 the length of the back wall and platform (just as in the houses in 

 the northern regions of East Greenland ^). 



The measurements of the height show, that the roof is by no 

 means flat, but always slopes up from the sides, as a rule in two 

 planes with a straight middle line, more seldom nearly arched. 

 The highest beam lies parallel with the front wall, not through the 

 middle line of the roof but nearer to the back than the front wall, 

 namely, almost directly over the edge of the main platform, where 

 the longest house props stand. The longest and heaviest beam of 

 the roof lies in this line and supports the cross-beams, which rest 

 with their one end on this and at their other on the upper edge of 

 the wall. These cross-beams usually lie at a little distance from one 

 another, but parallel. I have seen them placed like a fan in the 

 one part of the house and parallel in the other. The number of 

 cross-beams varied between 8 and 14. 



All the beams in the roof, the platform and house props are 

 made from drift-wood. In house No. II the main beam of the roof 

 consisted of several pieces of drift-wood fixed together; in the smaller 

 houses a single beam is sufficient. 



The roof is covered in addition by two layers of large, connected 

 grass-sods. The withered grass hangs down below the roof like 

 fringes between the beams and must not be pulled out. It is soon 

 turned black from the lamp soot. Above the roof are laid old, stiff 

 cast-off boat-skins, which are fastened down by stones (fig. 64). As 

 the house is often built on sloping ground, the back of the roof in 

 some houses reaches down almost to the ground. 



The windows look out towards the sea. The gut-skin panes, if 

 they are clean, are so transparent, that the sun can shine through. 

 On clear days there is so much light inside at the window ledges 

 that it is quite possible to read and write there. — Nowadays 

 window-glass is used in several of the houses. 



') Ryder (1895) p. 297; Amdrup (1909) pp. 31Г)— 316; Thostrup (1911) PI. II. 



