CHAPTER II 
Yes, as I often think, it is not the poetical imagination, but 
bare science that every day more and more unrolls a greater 
Epic than the Iliad; the history of the world, the infinitude 
of space and time!...it is in itself more wonderful than all the 
conceptions of Dante and Milton. FITZGERALD. 
Greenland a land of sunshine. Physical features and scraps of 
geological history. Evidence from fossil plants of warmer climates 
in the past. A limitless desert of ice; glaciers and icebergs. 
O most people Greenland suggests ‘icy moun- 
tains,’ barrenness, and barbarous natives, a 
conception resting upon a basis of fact, but which 
does scant justice to a land characterised by 
grandeur of scenery and by features of exceptional 
interest to a student of evolution in the widest 
sense, nor is it just to the natives whom to know is 
to appreciate and admire. 
As early as the thirteenth century an account 
was written by a learned Norseman whose name 
is not revealed! in a work entitled Konungs Skuggsja 
(The King’s Mirror), which shows that many cen- 
turies ago the more striking characteristics of 
Greenland were not unknown. This account is in 
the form of a dialogue between a father desirous 
of imparting information and a son whose function 
it is to stimulate the father by apposite questions. 
Fact and fancy both have a place in the volume? 
1 Some suggestions as to the author’s name and the date of the 
Ms will be found in Dr Nansen’s book, Jz Northern Mists. 
2 The translation, from the old Norwegian, from which the 
following extracts are taken is by Prof. Larson of Illinois and was 
published in 1917 under the title Tze King’s Mirror. 
