HISTORY. Greenland is supposed to have been first seen by Northmen early in the tenth century. The Norseman, Erik the Red, voyaged along the coasts in 985, and gave the country its name. Soon thereafter a settlement was made under his leadership; then Christianity was introduced. Early in the twelfth century a bishopric was founded in the country by the aid of the King of Norway. It was from Greenland that Leif Ericson set forth upon the voyage in the course of which he is supposed to have reached America. The population centred in two districts on the west coast, Western find and Eastern Bygcl. Greenland was at first an independent State with a constitution, and in most respects followed in Iceland's course of development. About 1260 it was constituted a Territory of Norway, and thus came into the union of Sweden and Den mark at the close of the fourteenth century. It was prosperous in this new epoch. hut its pros perity was before long cut short by European troubles. and by the black-death epidemic which visited it and Iceland. Also the `Skrfellings' at tacked the European settlements. Various mis fortunes followed. A disastrous period of climate also fell upon the land. As a result Greenland became lost to the world, and remained tiracti sally a blank in history for upward of 200 years. Expeditions sent out by Denmark after 1579 to redeem the colony accomplished nothing. About that epoch, however, English explorers—Frobish er, Davis, Baffin, Hudson, and others—discovered various portions of the coast. It was not till after 1650 that Dutch whalers frequented the east coast.
In 1721 a Danish missionary, Hans Egede, with the support of the Danish Government, made a settlement at Godthaab on the west coast, and began to introduce Christianity anew among the Eskimo. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Danes have acquired control of that uninhabited portion of Greenland which extends from Angmagsalik on the east coast round Cape Farewell to Tessuisak on the west coast. Danish settlements, particularly Godhavn, were the last stopping-places of the English expeditions on the way to discover the northwest passage in the early part of the nineteenth century, and were well known to civilization through the reports of these explorers. The region above Melville Bay was explored by John Ross in 1818 and by Ingle field in 1852; but the geographical knowledge concerning this region is mainly due to Ameri cans: Kane, Hayes, Hall, Greely, and Peary. One English expedition has passed beyond Cape York since the days of Inglefield—the British Admiral ty expedition under Nares in 1875-76. The knowledge of Kane Basin and Kennedy Channel is due to Kane and Hayes, and the knowledge of the straits and bays above them as far as the Arctic Ocean is due to Hall. Nares's expedition
traced the northwest coast of Greenland as far as Cape Britannica. Lockwood and Brainerd, of the Greely expedition, pushed farther along the northwestern coast-line to 83° 24'. Peary (1891 92) demonstrated that Greenland is an island and not a continent, as had been previously sup posed, and that an archipelago lies beyond it to the north; he also reached at the northern end of this archipelago, in 1901, what is probably the most northerly land in the world (83° 39'). Several persons have attempted to cross the ice cap which covers the entire interior region of Greenland—among them, NordenskiOld, Peary, and Nansen; but only Nansen and Peary have succeeded. In 1888, following closely laid plans before the world by Peary in 1886, Nansen made the first crossing of Greenland from GyldenlOpe Fjord on the east coast to Godthaab. Peary has three times crossed the northern portion of Green land from Whale Sound to Independence Bay, 1892, 1894, and 1895. The east coast has been examined by various explorers, most important among them: Scoresby, Graah, Holm, Ryder. Koldeway (who discovered Franz Josef Fjord and the magnificent Cape Bismarck, 77° N. lati tude), and Amdrup. Between Cape Bismarck and Independence Bay (82° 37') this coast is unknown.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. TA:gede, Description of GreenBibliography. TA:gede, Description of Green- land (London, 1745) ; Crantz, History of Green land (London, 1820) ; Graah, Expedition to East Greenland (London, 1837) ; Inglefield, Summer Search for Sir John Franklin (London, 1853) ; Kane, Arctic Explorations (Philadelphia, 1856) ; Hayes, 7'he Land of Desolation (London, 1871) ; Manual of the Natural History, Geology, and Physics of Greenland and Adjacent Regions (London, 1875), a scientific work prepared by the Royal Society, Arctic Committee; Davis, Hall's North Polar Expedition (Washington, 1876) ; Rink, Danish Greenland (London, 1877) ; the im portant series, Meddelesler one Gronland (16 vols., Copenhagen, 1879-95), of which Wandel, Norman, and Holm, Greenland East Coast and Julianehaab Ruine, vol. vi.; Warming, Greenland Vegetation, vol. xii.; Lauridsen, Bibliographica Greenlandica, vol. xiii., are of special value; Baffin, The Voyages of IV. Baffin, 1612-22, edited by Markham (London, 1881) ; Hear, Flora Fos silia Gronlandica (7 vols., Zurich, 1882-83) ; Greely, Three Years of Arctic Service (New York, 1886) ; NordenskiOld, Gronland (Leipzig, 1886) ; Nansen, First Crossing of Greenland (London, 1886) ; Peary, Northward Over the Great Ice (New York, 1898) ; Greely, Handbook of Arctic Discoveries (Boston, 1896).