PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLxlND. 413 



coast old deserted dwelling-places. They are recognizable at a 

 distance by the lively verdui'e, arising from the rich vegetation, 

 which the remnants of fishing and hunting prey scattered round 

 the cottages or tents has produced. On taking a few spadefuls 

 of earth, or on examining the walls of the new houses, — generally 

 built with turf taken from these spots, — one everywhere finds the 

 earth and grass-roots mixed with the bones of the animals which 

 the Greenlanders hunt. The animals killed by the men are in 

 fact cleansed by the women beside or in the cottage itself, and 

 the refuse after the cleansing or the meal is thrown away — seldom 

 far from the cottage-door. Even now, in the course of years, a 

 heap is frequently collected as truly circular as if it had been 

 drawn with a pair of compasses round the door as a centre. On 

 examining its contents, it is found to consist of a black, fat earth, 

 formed of decayed refuse — frequently bits of bone gnawed asunder 

 and broken, shells, especially those of Mytilus, lost or broken 

 household goods, etc. This bone-mixed earth most likely con- 

 tains, like guano, not only considerable quantities of phosphoric 

 acid, but also ammoniac salts, and it may happen that the trade 

 of Greenland may find in this a valuable article of export. 



As the kitchenmidden dates from the Stone Age in Greenland, — 

 which undoubtedly extended beyond the epoch at which the 

 whalers first began to visit these coasts, — we find in it arrow- 

 heads, skin-scrapers, and other instruments of various kinds in 

 stone, and especially a quantity of stone-flakes knocked ofi" in 

 forming the instruments, easily recognizable, not only by their 

 form, but by their consisting of stones — chalcedony, agate, and 

 especially green jasper (called by the Greenlanders " angmak ") — 

 not met with in the gneiss formation, but only at certain spots in 

 the basalt region of Disko or the peninsula of Noursoak. One 

 sometimes finds smaller instruments of clear quartz, also half- 

 wrought crystals of the same mineral. Everything shows that 

 the material was carefully chosen among such minerals as united 

 the necessary hardness with absence of cleavage and a flat con- 

 choidal fracture. Among minerals in general, the difierent 

 varieties of quartz (rock-crystal, agate, chalcedony, fiint, and 

 jasper) are the only ones which fully satisfy these conditions ; 

 and it is therefore almost exclusively these minerals that the 

 A'^arious races of men have chosen for making their chipped (not 

 ground) stone instruments. 



The two largest of the old house-sites, among which we were 

 now resting, lay so near the sea that their bases were washed by 

 the water. A small stream had found its way through one of 

 them, and had thus not only exposed a section of the kitchen- 

 midden, but also subjected a part of it to a washing process, in 

 consequence of Avhich bits of bone and other heavier objects lay 

 clean-washed at the bottom of the channel and in the hollows of 

 the gneiss slabs of the shore. These were carefully examined, 

 and a number of stone instruments and stone chips were collected. 

 There were no traces of iron ; but we found a small oval perforated 

 piece of copper, which had evidently once served as an orna- 



