A Description of Greenland

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1818 edition. Excerpt: ... the regions in the neighbourhood of the North Pole have lately become the objects of increased curiosity; and among these regions Greenland has attracted a more than usual interest. This country was first peopled by a colony from Iceland, which occupied both the Western and Eastern parts of the Island. The first h settlers in the West appear to have been destroyed by the natives, who are denominated Skrellings; and though a communication was preserved for several centuries between the Eastern coast of Greenland and some parts of the Danish territory, yet it was interrupted about the close of the fourteenth century by accumulated masses of ice, which formed an impenetrable barrier of considerable extent around the shore; and though various attempts have been made, at different times, to explore a passage throiigh this frozen rampart, yet there is no definite account of any attempt of this kind which has hitherto been successful. May we hope that the execution of this project, which is prompted, not only by curiosity but by philanthropy, is reserved for the present era, and that it will be finally accomplished by the nautical skill and enterprise of this cdtntry! As we possess indubitable evidence that a considerable extent of this coast was formerly occupied by a flourishing colony, and that it contained numerous villages, with a bishop's see, we cannot but be anxious to know what has been the fate of so many human beings, so long cut off from all intercourse with the more civilized world. Were they destroyed by an invasion of the natives, like their countrymen on the Western coast? or have they perished by the inclemency of the climate, and the sterility of the soil? or do they still subsist? If they subsist, it must greatly interest our...