Greenland
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Greenland. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a large island lying between North America and Europe, almost wholly within the Arctic Circle . Its greatest breadth, east and west, is 690 miles. Its length in a north and south direction is as yet unknown. Its area certainly exceeds half a million square miles. Greenland is an unusually mountainous country. The peaks on the western coast are from 5,000 to 6,000 feet high, while those on the eastern side run still higher, the greatest known elevation being Petermann Peak, estimated at 11,000 feet, nearly twice the height of Mt. Washington. The interior of Greenland is a rounded mass of glacial snow and ice, beneath which it is impossible to say what exists. The ice-cap rises high enough to conceal lofty mountains. The Antarctic ice-cap is considered the largest mass of ice in the world. That of Greenland ranks second. There is ice enough in Greenland to cover the entire United States one-fourth of a mile deep. Around the coast, bare strips escape from the ice. The widest extends along the western coast, and is from sixty to one hundred miles broad. The coast shows everywhere signs of subsidence. It is worn by glaciers into inlets comparable to those of the Alaskan coast. In fact, the fiords of Greenland surpass even those of Norway in magnitude. One of the largest is 160 miles long. Many are still filled with glaciers whose ends are 1,000 or even 2,000 feet thick. The Upernavik glacier creeps seaward in summer at a rate of ninety-nine feet per day, the highest rate of glacial advance known. In addition to the enormous discharge of ice into the sea, still greater quantities of water find their way under and through the ice in subglacial rivers. The island belongs to Denmark. A few hundred Danes live in the several villages and administer affairs. Upernavik is the most northerly inhabited village in the world. About 10,000 Eskimos hunt, trap, and fish, Indian fashion, and trade with the Danes. The Eskimos are expert in the use of snowshoes, dog sleds, and canoes. They live in tents in summer and in stone huts in winter, or, failing the latter, they are skillful in the construction of snow huts of a beehive or dome shape. Settlements are confined to the valleys on the coast. Commerce is a government monopoly. No private person is allowed to ship goods in or out. Eider down, game, a kind of stone called cryolite, fish and fish products,--the exports amount to perhaps a fourth or a half a million dollars a year. Groceries, clothing, ammunition, and the like are imported to an equal amount. The western coast is warmer than the eastern, as a warm ocean current runs up the western side while a cold Arctic current follows the eastern shore southward. The interior of Greenland is one of the coldest spots known, twenty degrees colder than the Arctic Ocean. See Glacier ; Iceland ; Peary
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
an island situated to 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, ing 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.