Note 286 — SECTION IX. CATALOGUE-RAISONNÉ OF MODERN TRAVELS IN ICELAND—PREPARATIONS FOR TRAVEL.

He made an expedition to East Greenland in 1828-29; and his volume was translated by the late E. Gordon Macdougall, and published (London, Parker, 1837) by the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain—a most sensible step. His determination that the East Bygð was on the west coast has of late been successfully questioned by Mr R. H. Major (Ocean Highways) through the 1507 edition of Ptolemy, the map of Van Keulen (circ. A.D. 1700), and the “Chorography” of the old Greenland colony, with sailing directions for reaching it from Iceland by Ivar Bardsen, steward of the colonial bishop. Captain Graah had denied the existence of Gunnbjörn’s Skerries, and so forfeited the guidance of Ivar Bardsen. His book, however, is a valuable study of hyperborean regions generally, and especially useful as a standard of comparison between Iceland and Greenland. In the latter we find the hot springs of Onnartok depositing silicious sinter, like the Geysir and Strokkr, whilst the unfinished church of Kakortok reminds us of Færoese Kirkjubæ.