CHAPTER VI 
Some drill and bore 
The solid earth, and from the strata there 
Extract a register, by which we learn 
That He who made it, and reveal’d its date 
To Moses, was mistaken in its age. © COWPER. 
Hare Island. Drift-wood. Upernivik Island. The catechist at 
home. Atanikerdluk; its scenery, fossil plants, and dykes. First 
and last impressions of Greenland. 
NE of the places it was our aim to visit was 
Hare Island, off the north-west coast of 
Disko Island, a small uninhabited island of basalt 
and beds of ash, including some layers with 
leaves and other fragments of a former vegetation 
which had been overwhelmed during volcanic 
eruptions. Landing on the beach is often very 
difficult on account of the swell, and it was only 
on our second visit that we were able to get ashore 
at the desired spot. On the north side of the island 
are the graves of some British sailors from whaling 
ships. Whalers are now very seldom seen: British 
ships no longer sail to these waters and in recent 
years they have been visited only by a few Nor- 
wegian vessels. In 1819 Sir James Ross on the 
way to the north saw as many as forty English 
whalers in the Vaigat. Hare Island is in some 
places rich in flowers, but wide expanses of dark 
brown basaltic sand with little or no vegetation 
give it a singularly desolate and depressing appear- 
ance. Some of the southern plants which occur on 
6—2 
