Chapter 17
For this snow-covered country White Land would be a more correct appellation than Greenland. Maybe, it was so-called ironically by its godfather, Eric the Red, a tenth-century sailor, who, most likely, was no redder than the land he named is green. Perhaps this Scandinavian was hoping to induce his fellow-countrymen to come and colonize this green (!) hyperborean region. If so, he did not succeed very well. Colonists have not allowed themselves to be tempted by the title; and at present, even including natives, the population of Greenland is scarcely more than ten thousand.
One must admit that a bolide worth so many milliards might have chosen a country better fitted than this one to receive it. And such a reflection must have occurred to the mind of more than one passenger le
