Tragedy in the cold of Greenland: The analysis of a mysterious spot in the diary of the Greenland researcher Jørgen Brønlund provides insights into the sad fate of this participant in the Danmark expedition. The stain under the last entry in November 1907 was created when an attempt was made to light a burner, suggesting the substances it contained. Apparently Brønlund did not succeed and so he succumbed, like his two colleagues before, to the cold in northern Greenland. Four months later he and his diary were found dead.
The last unknown part of Greenland’s northeast coast was to be explored: This was the goal of the so-called Danmark Expedition, to which the six-person team, led by Mylius Erichsen, set out in 1906 on the ship “Danmark”. The polar researchers wanted to confirm, among other things, that the 50,000 square kilometer Pearyland is not an island, but a peninsula of Greenland and thus belongs to Danish territory. In order to map the coastline there, the team split up into two groups of three who set off through the icy landscape in dog sleds. This adventure ended fatally for sled team 1: Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, Niels Peter Høeg-Hagen and Jørgen Brønlund could not reach the base camp again.
A diary at the feet of a corpse
In 1908, a search expedition found Brønlund’s body and his diary in a small cave. He had apparently died of frostbite and exhaustion. The previous death of the other two group members emerged from his last notes. In the last note, Brønlund wrote: “You died after trying to cross the ice sheet in November. I come here when the moonlight is waning, I couldn’t go on because of frostbite on my feet and because of the darkness ”.
The diary has been kept in the Royal Library in Copenhagen since it was found. Now a team of researchers from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense has paid renewed attention to the document: Instead of the text, however, the scientists focused on a strange black spot of an apparently viscous substance. He is on the last page of the diary under Brønlund’s final entry and his signature. In order to find out what the substance was, the scientists subjected samples of the stain to modern methods of material analysis.
Trace of a desperate attempt
As they report, the stain consists of burnt rubber, various oils, petroleum and fecal contamination. According to the scientists, there is a plausible explanation for this composition: It is a mixture of substances that was apparently created when an attempt was made to operate a petroleum burner. This device was also discovered on site in 1973. As the scientists explain, in addition to this burner, Brønlund also had matches and kerosene. But there was apparently another crucial component missing: He didn’t have denatured alcohol to preheat the burner.
Therefore he apparently tried to get the device going by other means. The researchers assume he tried the available oils. Hence the traces of vegetable and animal fats in the stain, say the scientists. According to them, the traces of burned rubber probably came from a seal on the petroleum burner. The material could have been created in an attempt to keep the fire going, the statement said.
As the first author of the study Kaare Lund Rasmussen finally clarifies, the findings give an impression of the last hours of the hapless polar explorer: “I see Brønlund before me, weak and with dirty, trembling hands trying to light the burner – and failing “Says the scientist.
Source: University of Southern Denmark, Article: Archaometry, doi: 10.1111 / arcm.12641