The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1888-06-13
AN UNEMPLOYED COUNTRY.
THE GREAT ICEBERG G-PRODUCING
REGION OF THE FROZEN NORTH.
A Strange Arctic Mineral-The Veg
etatIon-Formation of Icebergs-
Animal Life in Greenland.

etatIon-Formation Of Icebergs-
Animal Life in Greenland.
As many as II, 900 souls manage to
live along Davis Straits and Baflin's Bay,
from Julianshaab to Upernavik, depend
ing chiefly on the fisheries, and small
trade in oil, skins and eiderdown. The
strange Arctic mineral, cryolite, is also
exported by these hardy coonists to the
extent of 5000 or II, 600 tons per an
mum; and there is besides plenty of
metallic wealth in Greenland-lead, cop
per, znc and iron, with rich stores of
garnets, iolite and rock crystal-if they
could only be got at. Good coal is dug
degrees, and about these parts black
cattle and sheep have been introduced
by the missionaries. The interior of this
enormous tract OF frozen earth remains,
however, almost utterly unknown. Its eli
mate in the winter months is incredibly
severe, going 60 degrees or 70 degrees
below zero. There is a short spring and
summer of about four months, those of
May, June, July and August, and during
July the sun, being constantly above the
horizon, produces an extraordinary de-
gree of heat-as high as eighty-four in
the shade. Vegetation then pushes
wonderfully; the herbage, which is like
that OF northern Scotland, grows apace;
the little stunted birches, never more
than eighteen inches tall, put forth their
feeble twigs aud foliage, and the SHOWS
upon the vast uplands and great central
ridge of mountains partially melt. The
mountainous backbone stretches right
down the middle of the country, and its
snowy waters pour into the fiords and
sounds on either side, loosening the
mighty glaciers which are always form
ing in the winter time From ten thou
sand huge white cliffs the immense
masses of ice break away, hurl
! themselves down the precipices
with hideous uproar, and sail off
into the open waters to crowd the North
Atlantic with fleets of icebergs, and with
vast hummocky foes. Greenland is the
great mandatory of the beautiful but
dangerous ice argos.es, which often
tower 500 feet out of the green waves,
and cruise in mighty squadrors south
ward chilling the northwinds to bitter
keenness, and causing the loss of many
a stout whaler. One may partly Judge,
by the prodigious size of these detached
bergs, what the accumulation of falling
snow must be in the interior of the coun-
try. For hundreds of leagues, indeed, it
lies in an unbroken ard dazzling sheet of
deadly splendor, draping all the irregu-
larities of the soil beneath with a smooth
shroud of white. This universal mantle
dips into the ravines aud rises up on the
ridges and peaks, lying in places perhaps
a thousand feet deep of solid snow, and
intersected with terrible crevasses, to fall
into which would be like sinking into q
bottomless gulf.
Avalanches and landslips, storms of
binding billiards, and whirlwinds
which tear up the drifts and bury alike
mountain tops and valleys, are common
incidents of the dreadful Greenland win
ter, which, however, does not, somehow,
| prevent an abundance of animal life.
Just as the cold neighboring seas swarm
with rorqual, narwhal, wha c, porpoise,
cod, salmon and herring, so the white
wastes are full of polar bears, arctic
foxes and reindeer, which know how to
exist where it should seem nature had
forbidden that life would be sustained.
1t is the breeding ground of many va
riet es Of birds, and, while sea fowl in
countle tlocks throng the islands and
|
grouse and knots, with ravens falcons,
and a very large species of eagles, are
seen in shore. Large dogs, also, of the
sledge drawing kind, but fierce as wolves
and powerful as mastiffs, run wild upon
the uplands; and it is said that the au-
rochs, the primitive bison of the Arctic
circle, still iuhabit the inner tracts,
where scanty herbage is some
times laid bare. The natives are the
well-known stunted, ignorant, and mis-
erably poor PEOPLE called Esquimaux,
whose existence from birth to death is
one long struggle against the forces of a
world where nature hardly wears a single
charm, or ever reaxes her stern severity.
| Yet these starvelngs o. the frozen region
are contented and cheerful race, ac-
tually loving their icy country, and uu-
able to live elsewhere in any happiness,
so that those of their number who have
been brought to Denmark or Norway
always return to die of nostalgia. The
| EsquimauX about the anish stations en-
| Joy the advantage of buying imported
-FOUR brandy. coffee, sugar, tobacco and
| tirewood. The remoter Greenlander5
live much as do the polar hears, wander
| ing from island TO island and inlet to in
let, gorging themselves with seal fat and
whale blubber sitting in their igloos of
snow through the eight months night of
that dreary continent, stitching with
bone needles their garments of bird skins,
or grinding whale ribs on a rough stone
into runners for their sledges. -
TelegraDh