The writer is a science commentator
Long before the glitter of Greenland’s ice caught the covetous eye of Donald Trump, the minerals beneath were bewitching others.
Among those dazzled was Karl Ludwig Giesecke, an actor-turned-mineralogist who became stranded on the island during the Napoleonic wars. Possessed of several pseudonyms during a colourful and globetrotting career, including as a minerals dealer, Giesecke travelled throughout Greenland in the early 19th century compiling an inventory of the island’s mineralogical treasures. His journal entries, which credit the prior knowledge of the Inuit, include descriptions of cryolite, mined there exclusively from the 1850s and known as “white gold” because of its industrial value as a chemical additive (synthetic alternatives are used today).