GREENLAND. The most northerly of the Arctic colonies of Denmark, a country unique in several respects. It is the largest known island, after the island continent of Australia, the most northerly land of the earth, the only ice-tapped region occupied by man, and has the northernmost settlements of the world.
Area and Physiography.—Its area is not accurately known, but probably approximates 750,000 square miles, estimates varying from 512,000 to 825,000. It extends over 1,600 miles north and south, from Cape Farewell in latitude 59° 45' N. to Cape .Jesup, about 83° 35' N. latitude, and about 900 miles in width from east to west near the 78th parallel. The,country is a high plateau, generally ranging from 2,000 to 6,000 feet in elevation, while the dividing cen tral crest varies from 5,000 to 9,000 feet. It is covered, except at the very edge of the sur rounding seas, by an unbroken ice-cap of glacier, known usually as the inland-ice, which averages a thickness of a thousand feet or more. Here and there above the surface of the ice-cap emerge ice-free peaks, among which the highest recorded are Tiningertok, near Cape Farewell, 7,340 feet; Petermann, near Franz Josef fiord, about 8,500 feet ; and Ford, near the centre of South Greenland, 9,050 feet. The continuity of the inland-ice has been determined by the jour neys and crossings of Nordenslciiild, 1870 and 1883; Jensen, 1879; Peary, 1886 and 1892; Nan sen, 1888; Garde, 1892; Mylius-Erichsen, 1902; Quervain, 1913; and Koch. 1913. Vast ice streams flow continuously from the inland-ice into the adjacent seas, largely through the fiords; of which Greenland presents the most extensive and most remarkable system in the world, These fiords number hundreds in all, have very deep water and penetrate the country far inland. The diverging fiords of Scoresby Sound terminate 163 miles from the ocean. The most important fiords on the southeast coast are Franz Josef and King Oscar; on the north east Danmark; on the southwest, Godthaab, Uminak, Jacobshaven, Torsukatak and Ingle field; and on the northwest facing the Arctic Ocean, Peterman, Sherard, Osborn and De Long At intermediate points between the fiords the inland-ice flows directly into the sea at hun dreds of places. On the east coast Garde dis covered more than 200 such streams, where the precipitous sea-face of the glacier was more than a mile wide. In Kane Sea, on the north
west, Humboldt lacier presents some 60 miles of sea-front. The only ice-free regions are coast lowlands and the outlying islands. Such spaces rarely exceed 50 miles in width between sea and ice, and usually are barren wastes.
The temperatures are arctic, frosts occurring occasionally over the whole country in midsummer. Summer temperatures vary little from Cape Farewell to the Arctic Ocean, but the absence of the sun—lasting four months in the extreme north—causes larger differences in winter. The three warmest and coldest months show average temperatures as follows: Ivigtut, 61° N., summer, 48, win ter, 21 degrees; Godthaad, 64° N., 39 and 12 degrees • Upernivik, 73° N., 38 and —4 degrees; Thank God Harbor, 82° N. (deduced from Fort Conger) summer, 35, winter, —37 degrees.
Icebergs.—The great fiords have very deep water, long shore-lines, and precipitous sides, often sheer and at times as high as 4,000 feet. Such conditions facilitate the detachment, or calving, of great bergs from the parent mass. Many thousands of icebergs are thus formed each year, the larger number on the east coast, where, however, the set of the Spitzbergen cur rent keeps most of them stationary. Others are carried by prevailing currents around Cape Farewell, and thence north into Melville Bay. From these waters the icebergs are finally sent south by the current along the west water, and thus furnish the great ice fields of the Atlantic, off Labrador and Newfoundland. The most astonishing of the ice-berg producers are the Torsukatak and Jacobshaven fiords of south western Greenland. The latter fiord was es timated by Rink (author of Greenland') to have an average daily outflow of between 8,000,000 and 15,000,000 cubic meters of ice. Icebergs as long as 10 miles or more have been reported from Melville Bay, with heights of other bergs ranging from 50 to 250 feet above the water. Unlike the adjacent island, Iceland, Greenland has no volcanoes. Geysers are also absent, the hottest springs being those on Anortok Island, in extreme south Greenland, 60° 29' N. latitude, where the highest tempera ture of the water is 108 degrees.