GREENFIELD, a town and county-seat of Franklin co., Mass.; on the Boston and Maine railroad; 56 miles W. of Fitchburg. It contains Factory and North Parish villages; manufactures principally shoes, cutlery, silverware, machinists' tools, snow shovels, cement blocks, paper boxes, rakes, and baby carriages; and has electric lights, waterworks, public library, high school, a National bank, the county hospital and weekly newspapers. Pop. (1910) 10,427; (1920) 15,462.
GREENLAND, an island situated in the N. E. of North America, from which it is separated by Davis Straits, Baffin Bay and Smith Sound; area about 849,000 square miles. A part of the island belongs to Denmark; its area is 46,740 square miles. A greater part of coast is yet unknown; but it does not extend farther than about lat. 83°. Like the N. parts of North America generally, Greenland is colder than the corresponding latitudes on the E. side of the Atlantic. In June and July the sun is constantly above the horizon, the ice on the coast is broken up and floats S. and a few small lakes are opened; but the short summer is followed by a long and dreary winter. The interior, which is lofty, is uninhabitable, and all the villages are confined to the coasts, which are lined with numerous islands, and deeply penetrated by fiords. The Danish colony extends N. on the W. coast, to the Bay of Disco, in lat. 69°. N. Cultivation is confined to the low shores and valleys, where grassy meadows sometimes occur with stunted shrubs and dwarfed birch, alder, and pine trees. Attempts to raise oats and barley have failed, but potatoes have been grown toward the S. extremity. Turnips attain the size of a pigeon's egg, and cabbages grow very small. The radish is the only vegetable which grows unchecked.
The inhabitants are largely dependent on hunting and fishing. Whale blubber and seal oil are used as fuel. The land animals are the Esquimaux dog, the reindeer, the polar bear, the Arctic fox (blue and white), the ermine, the Arctic hare, and the musk ox. Among the amphibia the walrus and several species of seal are common. The seas abound in fish, the whale and cod fisheries being of special importance. Seafowl are abundant in summer, and largely killed. The chief mineral product is cryolite, but graphite and miocene lignite coal are also found. Oil, eider down, furs, and cryolite are exported. For administrative purposes Greenland, or rather its coast, is divided into two inspectorates of North and South Greenland. The residences of the inspectors are at Disco Island and Godhaab, but the most populous district is Julianshaab.
Greenland was discovered by an Icelander named Gunnbjörn about 876 or 877, and was colonized from Iceland about the end of the 10th century. In the reign of Elizabeth, Frobisher and Davis rediscovered the coast, but nothing was done to explore it till the Danish Government in 1721 assisted Hans Egede, a clergyman, to establish a European mission settlement, Good Hope (Godhaab), which was successfully carried on by him and his son. Whale fisheries were established on the coast by the English and Dutch about 1590. The interior of the country was first crossed from E. to W. by Nansen in 1888. Pop. about 14,000.
GREENLET, in ornithology, Vireoninæ, a sub-family of Muscicapidæ (flycatchers). They are so called from having much green or olive in the colors of their plumage. They are small birds arriving in the United States from South America and the West Indies about the month of May, and departing again in August. Some of them sing sweetly.
GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS, a name
applied to the male inhabitants of
Vermont, from, the chief range of mountains
in the State, and used especially in referring
to regiments from Vermont in the
Revolution and the Civil War.
GREEN MOUNTAINS, a considerable mountain range commencing in Hartford co., Conn., and extending N. through Massachusetts and Vermont into Lower Canada. Length, about 240 miles. Their greatest elevation is in Vermont, where Mount Mansfield, or North Peak, rises to a height of 4,389 feet. Their geological formation is the metamorphic slates, gneiss, quartz rock, limestone, etc., of the Laurentian epoch, the general range of which is about N. 15° E., with a prevailing dip of 30° to 55°. The slopes are covered on the disappearance of the snow in spring with fine pastures of rich green grass, which may have given to the mountains their name, though this is commonly referred to the growth of evergreen forest trees.
GREENOCK, a seaport of Renfrewshire, the fifth largest town in Scotland, on the S. shore of the Firth of Clyde, 3¾ miles by water S. of Helensburgh, and 22½ by rail W. N. W. of Glasgow. The W. end of the town, with its elegant villas of every style of architecture, its esplanade 1½ miles long, its wide and well-paved streets, planted with trees, is attractive. The public buildings are many of them handsome; chief among
