tricts in North Greenland, the valley on the opposite side of the harbour from the “coloni” abounding with crowberries and bilberries, and bright in July with the blue and yellow arctic flowers. Claushavn is the chief post, and derives its support from the seals killed among the enormous crop of icebergs poured out by the great Jakobshavn ice fjord. Many of the bergs ground here until they are lifted by spring tides and carried by the wind out into Baffin's Bay. Jakobshavn has eight stations, collecting 104 tuns of oil and 900 seal-skins from 424 people. Godhavn, on Disco Island, was at one time a seat of the whale trade, in 1798 no less than 20 whales having been caught there; but this industry has now entirely ceased, the last whale caught by the Government officials being in 1851. Its chief importance is in the fact that Godhavn (or Lievely) is the seat of the Government of North Greenland, and the place at which exploring and whaling vessels often call. Its trade is insignificant, the district returning on an average only about 30 tuns of oil and 400 seal-skins; the settlement has for many years been actually a loss to the Government. There are in the district 245 people, who are perhaps the least industrious and self-reliant of all the Greenlanders. Ritenbenk has five stations, returning 116 tuns of oil and 3500 seal-skins, collected by 447 people. Umanak is one of the most profitable districts,—the “coloni” with its six outposts returning to the “royal trade” about 180 tuns of oil and 8300 seal-skins, collected from 798 people. Upernivik is the most northern district, its limits being those of the natives belonging to the Danish settlements. It is very profitable,—its average return being 148 tuns of oil and 6500 seal-skins, besides eider down and bear skins, with formerly a considerable quantity of reindeer-skins. In 1870 there were 702 people in the district, the chief of the outposts being Proven (“the experiment”), and Tasiusak (73° 24′ N. lat.), the most northern Danish trading post, and the most northern permanent abode of civilized men or women, for the trader has a Danish wife with him. “To a European female,” writes the director of the Royal Greenland Board of Trade, “this indeed seems to be one of the most melancholy places of residence that can be found.” In the service of the Danish mission there were in 1870 53 appointed teachers, besides several other teachers classed as seal hunters or fishers. In the service of the royal trade were 12 outpost traders, 15 head men and “boatswains,” 14 carpenters and smiths, 19 coopers, 15 cooks, 54 sailors and labourers, besides 10 pensioners and 33 midwives; 5 officers were enumerated as natives, but 3 of them are more properly Europeans. In the same year the Europeans numbered 237, of whom 95 were engaged in the trade, 8 were Danish and 11 Moravian missionaries, and 38 lived at the cryolite mine; the rest were women and children.[1] Altogether there were in 1870 9825 people in Danish Greenland (including 9408 natives), and in 1878 9800. The details of the latter census are not published, but they do not in any material manner alter those just given. The inhabitants of the east coast are not believed to exceed 800 if so many, and yearly this number is being lessened by immigration to the Danish settlements on the west coast. The natives of the shores of Smith Sound, north of Melville Bay, number about 200; and it is satisfactory to learn that of late these ἔσχατοι ἀνδρῶν are not decreasing.[2] Their most northern settlement is Etah. From the information of the Eskimo, Hans Hendrik, it appears that Dr Kane was in error in asserting that the Smith Sound natives knew nothing of those to the south of the glaciers of Melville Bay.
History.—Greenland was first landed on about the year 986 by Erikr Rauthi or Red Erik, a banished Icelandic jarl, though some time previously the country had been sighted by Ulf Kraku, another Icelander. Erik and his house early settled at Brattelid,—the present Eskimo station of Igaliko,—situated on an isthmus between two fjords, believed to be the Erik's and Einar's Fjords of the old sagas, where to this day can be traced the walls of about seventeen dwellings, one of which bears evidence of having been Erik's house. Other settlers followed, and among these was Bjarni, son of Herjulf, one of Erik's companions, whose home was probably at Herjulf's Ness, opposite the Moravian settlement of Frederiksdal, where have been found tombs containing wooden coffins, with skeletons wrapped in coarse hairy cloth, and both pagan and Christian tombstones with runic inscriptions. This Bjarni, in his wanderings, discovered the continent of America (Vinland), and, among these who were attracted hither was Leif, who went ashore near where the town of Taunton now stands. After this there is said to have been a considerable trade between Norway and America, and between both countries and the Greenland colonists. The latter even penetrated to 73° N. lat. as early as the year 1235, and left a small runic stone recording the event.[3] Christianity was introduced, and Arnold appointed the first bishop, in 1126; and Greenland, like Iceland, had a republican organization up to the year 1261, when Hakon Hakonsen, king of Norway, induced the Greenlanders to swear allegiance to him. Henceforth they were Norwegian subjects, and their country one of the queen's domains. From that day may be dated the beginning of their decay and final disappearance as colonists, though the black death, foreign enemies, and the attacks of the Eskimo, who about this period burst upon the colonies from the north, had something to do with it. These settlements were called respectively the Easter Bygd or Building and the Wester Bygd, both being now known to be on the west coast, though for long the view was persistently held that the first was on the east coast, and numerous expeditions have been sent in search of these “lost colonies” and their imaginary survivors. The last bishop appointed to Greenland died in 1540, but long before that date those appointed had never reached their sees. The country had also been visited by a hostile fleet (believed to be English), and about the end of the 15th century it would appear that all colonization had ceased. When in 1585 John Davis visited it there was no sign of any people save the Eskimo, among whose traditions are one or two relating to the old Norsemen. For more than 200 years Greenland seems to have been neglected—almost forgotten. It was visited by whalers, chiefly Dutch, but nothing in the form of permanent settlements was established until the year 1721, when the first missionary, Hans Egede, landed. Amid many hardships and discouragements he persevered;[4] and at the present day the remnant of the native race is civilized and Christianized, instead of wild and pagan, as they were when he arrived among them. The colonists of the 18th century were, many of them, convicts and other offenders; and the trade was a monopoly in the hands of private individuals. In 1733-34 there was a dreadful epidemic of small-pox which destroyed an immense number of the people. In 1774 the trade ceased to be profitable as a private monopoly, and to prevent it being abandoned the Government took it over. In 1807-14, owing to the war, communication was cut off with Denmark; but since that date the country has been prospering in a languid fashion, though, if the Government ceased its fostering care, the Eskimo, and with them what trade is carried on, must become extinct.
Of late years, the northern part of the country has been explored by Inglefield (1852), Kane (1853-55), Hayes (1860-61), Hall (1871-73), and to some extent by Nares (1875-76), whose discovery of the probable northern termination of the country in about 83° N. lat. had been already presaged theoretically.[5] The east coast has been explored by Scoresby (1822), Clavering (1823), Graah (1829-30), the German expedition (1869-70), and Mourier (1879), while the interior has been penetrated for a short way by the Danes, Americans, English, and Swedes whose names have been noted above, and by others.[6] In like manner, the scientific history of the country has been investigated by a host of savants from the days of Fabricius to our own, whose names are too numerous to recount, though, in the works above quoted, these are given either directly or indirectly. For further information see the articles Eskimo and Polar Regions. (R. B.)
GREENLEAF, Simon (1783-1853), American jurist, was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, December 5, 1783. After studying law in Massachusetts and Maine, he began in 1806 to practise at Standish in the latter State, proceeding finally to Portland in 1818. There, after two years, he became reporter of the supreme court of Maine, and during his twelve years of office published nine volumes of Reports. Resigning in 1832, Greenleaf became in 1833 Royale professor, and in 1846 Dane professor of law in Harvard University, where he received the degree of doctor of laws. He retired in 1848 from his active duties, becoming emeritus professor, and after being for some years president of the Massachusetts Bible Society died at Cambridge, Mass., October 6, 1853.
Greenleaf's principal work is a Treatise on the Law of Evidence, 1842-53. He published also A Full Collection of Cases Overruled, Denied, Doubted, or Limited in their Application, taken from American and English Reports, in 1840, expanded afterwards to 3 volumes; and an Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence administered in the Courts of Justice, with an Account of the Trial of Jesus, 1846. This was republished in England in 1847.
- ↑ Danish Greenland (1877), p. 355, corrected by recent Government returns and private correspondence.
- ↑ Feilden, Appendix to Nares, lib. cit., vol. ii. p. 187; Narrative of “Polaris” N. Polar Expedition, p. 477, &c.
- ↑ This stone, not much bigger than a hone, was until recently in the Copenhagen Museum of Northern Antiquities. It was stolen, however, and the priceless monument is now only represented by a model.
- ↑ Fenger, Bidrag til Hans Egedes og den grönlandske Missions Historie, 1721-1760 (1879).
- ↑ Brown, Arctic Papers of R. G. S. (1875), p. 70.
- ↑ “The Physical Structure of Greenland” (Arctic Papers of R. G. S., pp. 1-73); see also for history the works catalogued in Chavannes, Karpfs, and Le Monniers, Die Literatur über die Polar- Regionen der Erde (1878).
