416 PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



met with, I cannot see how the Greenlanders, with the tools they 

 at present possess, could possibly forge an arrow-point out of 

 a piece of iron weighing a couple of pounds. But, on the other 

 hand, since the time when ships first began to cross the Atlantic, 

 a wreck may now and then have been carried by the current on to 

 the coast of Greenland, sometimes far up Baffin's Bay. We were 

 able to verify an example of this. During our stay in North 

 Greenland, a fragment of a small schooner or brig drove on 

 shore at Disko, between Diskofjord and Mellanfjord. As soon as 

 notice of the matter was given, the Greenlanders in the neighbour- 

 hood made an accurate inventory of everything on board that could 

 be turned to any useful purpose. They found bread and sundry 

 other provisions, also potatoes, but no paper or any indication of 

 the name the ship had once borne, or the nation to which it had be- 

 longed, further than that the brass bolts by which the timbers were 

 fastened together bore the stamp " Skultuna ; " they were there- 

 fore from the Swedish brass-foundry of that name, and it is perhaps 

 probable that the vessel itself was either Swedish or Norwegian. 

 It was a two-masted vessel of 100-150 tons burden, according 

 to the estimate of the Danes, and, according to the Greenlanders, 

 could take a cargo equal to about half that of a three-master. The 

 timbers were of oak, the outer covering of pine, the sides were not 

 strengthened to resist ice, the stern was round " as a Dutchman's." 

 The Greenlanders asserted that undoubtedly the ship was neither 

 a whaler nor intended to sail amongst ice ; and there is not the 

 slightest reason to doubt the accuracy of their judgment, which is 

 most sagacious in such matters. We have then here an example 

 of a wreck drifting hither from the southern seas. Similar events 

 must of course have often happened before, and what an abundance 

 of iron the wreck of a ship supplies to a Greenland colony with its 

 limited wants, is evident from the quantity of iron lying, at our 

 visit, scattered around the houses in Godhavn, and obtained from 

 whalers that had been stranded there in the preceding year. 

 Here again was evidence of the Greenlander's improvident cha- 

 racter. It never entered the mind of any one of them, out of all 

 that quantity of iron — sufficient perhaps to supply the wants of 

 the Greenlanders for a century — to preserve more than what he 

 for the moment required ; and if the regular exportations from 

 Europe were to cease, the colony would again in a few years have 

 to go back to the bone-knife, the bow, and the stone implements. 



For bone-knives, such as are sometimes found in old graves, the 

 edge of which is formed by an iron plate let into a groove in the 

 bone, a piece of an iron hoop of a barrel, that may have washed 

 ashore, may easily enough have been used ; an old worn-out iron 

 knife would have been less fit for the purpose. These iron-edged 

 bone-knives are therefore by no means always remnants from the 

 time when the iron brought into the country by the Northmen in 

 the beginning of the present millennium had begun to be scarce ; 

 but merely examples of the Greenlanders' way of turning to use 

 for their simple wants, in the most appropriate manner, any objects 

 that may come in their way. 



