This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1888 Excerpt: ... 4. THE ESKIMOS. Our artist has transported us to the northern portion of the inhospitahle shores of the west coast of Greenland. This, the largest island in the world, possesses an area seven times larger than that of the British Isles, and reaches from the latitude of St. Petersburg to within less than eight degrees of the North Pole. Greenland is separated from the islands of the Arctic Nortli America by Davis Strait, Baffin Bay, Smith Sound, and its prolongations further to the north. The low elevation of these islands contrasts strongly with the formidable range of mountains traversing the eastern portion of Greenland from north to south, the highest summits of which reach an altitude of 12,000 feet above the sea. Short glaciers extend from these mountains down to the fiords on the neighbouring east coast; but on the western slope the glaciers merge into one enormous ice-field, known as the Greenland "Inland Ice." Save for a few small rocks and crags, rising like islands from this sea of ice, the whole of the interior of Greenland is thus enveloped, just as, in the Glacial Period, the gigantic glaciers issuing from Scandinavia, spread themselves over the whole of Germany and Russia as far as the mountains of Central Europe. In the upper picture, representing the Greenland summer, we perceive the termination of one of the glaciers of Western Greenland. It might almost be mistaken for a field of snow, were it not that the snow lying near the coast disappears during the summer season even in Greenland. But though the snow may melt, the few short weeks of summer are not sufficient to allow trees to thrive, even close to the water"s edge. The sun, however, that scarcely sinks below the horizon during the whole of the short summer, is powerful enough to infus...