Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/567

 The one specimen—greenheart—is merely slightly pitted on the surface, the body of the wood being perfectly sound and untouched, while the other—teak—is almost entirely eaten away. Greenheart, tested either by transverse or by tensile strain, is one of the strongest of all woods, and it is also exceedingly dense, its specific gravity being about 1150. It is included in the second line of Lloyd’s Register for shipbuilding purposes, and it is extensively used for keelsons, beams, engine-bearers and planking, &c., as well as in the general engineering arts, but its excessive weight unfits it for many purposes for which its other properties would render it eminently suitable.  GREENLAND (Danish, &c., Grönland), a large continental island, the greater portion of which lies within the Arctic Circle, while the whole is arctic in character. It is not connected with any portion of Europe or America except by suboceanic ridges; but in the extreme north it is separated only by a narrow strait from Ellesmere Land in the archipelago of the American continent. It is bounded on the east by the North Atlantic, the Norwegian and Greenland Seas—Jan Mayen, Iceland, the Faeroe Islands and the Shetlands being the only lands between it and Norway. Denmark Strait is the sea between it and Iceland, and the northern Norwegian Sea or Greenland Sea separates it from Spitsbergen. On the west Davis Strait and Baffin Bay separate it from Baffin Land. The so-called bay narrows northward into the strait successively known as Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel and Robeson Channel. A submarine ridge, about 300 fathoms deep at its deepest, unites Greenland with Iceland (across Denmark Strait), the Faeroes and Scotland. A similar submarine ridge unites it with the Cumberland Peninsula of Baffin Land, across Davis Strait. Two large islands (with others smaller) lie probably off the north coast, being apparently divided from it by very narrow channels which are not yet explored. If they be reckoned as integral parts of Greenland, then the north coast, fronting the polar sea, culminates about 83° 40′ N. Cape Farewell, the most southerly point (also on a small island), is in 59° 45′ N. The extreme length of Greenland may therefore be set down at about 1650 m., while its extreme breadth, which occurs about 77° 30′ N., is approximately 800 m. The area is estimated at 827,275 sq. m. Greenland is a Danish colony, inasmuch as the west coast and also the southern east coast belong to the Danish crown. The scattered settlements of Europeans on the southern parts of the coasts are Danish, and the trade is a monopoly of the Danish government.

The southern and south-western coasts have been known, as will be mentioned later, since the 10th century, when Norse settlers appeared there, and the names of many famous arctic explorers have been associated with the exploration of Greenland. The communication between the Norse settlements in Greenland and the motherland Norway was broken off at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, and the Norsemen’s knowledge about their distant colony was gradually more or less forgotten. The south and west coast of Greenland was then re-discovered by John Davis in July 1585, though previous explorers, as Cortereal, Frobisher and others, had seen it, and at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century the work of Davis (1586–1588). Hudson (1610) and Baffin (1616) in the western seas afforded some knowledge of the west coast. This was added to by later explorers and by whalers and sealers. Among explorers who in the 19th century were specially connected with the north-west coast may be mentioned E. A. Inglefield (1852) who sailed into Smith’s Sound, Elisha Kent Kane (1853–1855) who worked northward through Smith Sound into Kane Basin, and Charles Francis Hall (1871) who explored the strait (Kennedy Channel and Robeson Channel) to the north of this.

The northern east coast was sighted by Hudson (1607) in about 73° 30′ N. (C. Hold with Hope), and during the 17th century and later this northern coast was probably visited by many Dutch whalers. The first who gave more accurate information was the Scottish whaler, Captain William Scoresby, jun. (1822), who, with his father, explored the coast between 69° and 75° N., and gave the first fairly trustworthy map of it. Captains Edward Sabine and Clavering (1823) visited the coast between 72° 5′ and 75° 12′ N. and met the only Eskimo ever seen in this part of Greenland. The second German polar expedition in 1870, under Carl Christian Koldewey (1837–1908), reached 77° N. (Cape Bismarck); and the duke of Orleans, in 1905, ascertained that this point was on an island (the Dove Bay of the German expedition being in reality a strait) and penetrated farther north, to about 78° 16′. From this point the north-east coast remained unexplored, though a sight was reported in 1670 by a whaler named Lambert, and again in 1775 as far north as 79° by Daines Barrington, until a Danish expedition under Mylius Erichsen in 1906–1908 explored it, discovering North-East Foreland, the easternmost point (see Polar Regions and map). The southern part of the east coast was first explored by the Dane Wilhelm August Graah (1829–1830) between Cape Farewell and 65° 16′ N. In 1883–1885 the Danes G. Holm and T. V. Garde carefully explored and mapped the coast from Cape Farewell to Angmagssalik, in 66° N. F. Nansen and his companions also travelled along a part of this coast in 1888. A. E. Nordenskiöld, in the “Sophia,” landed near Angmagssalik, in 65° 36′ N., in 1883. Captain C. Ryder, in 1891–1892, explored and mapped the large Scoresby Sound, or, more correctly, Scoresby Fjord. Lieutenant G. Amdrup, in 1899, explored the coast from Angmagssalik north to 67° 22′ N. A part of this coast, about 67° N., had also been seen by Nansen in 1882. In 1899 Professor A. G. Nathorst explored the land between Franz Josef Fjord and Scoresby Fjord, where the large King Oscar Fjord, connecting Davy’s Sound with Franz Joseph Fjord, was discovered. In 1900 Lieutenant Amdrup explored the still unknown east coast from 690 10′ N. south to 67° N.

From the work of explorers in the north-west it had been possible to infer the approximate latitude of the northward termination of Greenland long before it was definitely known. Towards the close of the 19th century several explorers gave attention to this question. Lieutenant (afterwards Admiral) L. A. Beaumont (1876), of the Nares Expedition, explored the coast north-east of Robeson Channel to 82° 20′ N. In 1882 Lieut. J. B. Lockwood and Sergeant (afterwards Captain) D. L. Brainard, of the U.S. expedition to Lady Franklin Bay, explored the north-west coast beyond Beaumont’s farthest to a promontory in 83° 24′ N. and 40° 46′ E. and they saw to the north-east Cape Washington, in about 83° 38′ N. and 39° 30′ E., the most northerly point of land till then observed. In July 1892 R. E. Peary and E. Astrup, crossing by land from Inglefield Gulf, Smith Sound, discovered Independence Bay on the north-east coast in 81° 37′ N. and 34° 5′ W. In May 1895 it