Chapter XXXVII: Appendix: I (10)

[553] Gomara makes record of such floating visitors in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Horace Davis published in the _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._ (Apr., 1872) a record of Japanese vessels driven upon the northwest coast of America and its outlying islands in a paper “On the likelihood of an admixture of Japanese blood on our northwest coast.” Cf. A. W. Bradford’s _American Antiquities_ (N. Y., 1841); Whymper’s _Alaska_, 250; Bancroft’s _Nat. Races_, v. 52, with references; _Contributions to Amer. Ethnol._, i. 97, 238; De Roquefeuil’s _Journal du Voyage autour du Monde_ (1876-79), etc. It is shown that the great Pacific current naturally carries floating objects to the American coast. Davis, in his tract, gives a map of it. Cf. Haven, _Archæol. U. S._, p. 144; _Bull. Amer. Geog. Soc._ (1883), xv. p. 101, by Thomas Antisell; and _China Review_, Mar., Apr., 1888, by J. Edkins.

[554] _Recherches sur les navigations des Chinois du côte de l’Amérique et sur quelques peuples situés à l’extrémité orientale de l’Asie_ (Paris, 1761). It is translated in Vining, ch. 1.

[555] _Examen Critique_, ii. 65, and _Ansichten der Natur_, or _Views of Nature_, p. 132.

[556] Much depends on the distance intended by a Chinese _li_. Klaproth translated the version as given by an early Chinese historian of the seventh century, Li Yan Tcheou, and Klaproth’s version is Englished in Bancroft’s _Nat. Races_, v. 33-36. Klaproth’s memoir is also translated in Vining, ch. 3. Some have more specifically pointed to Saghalien, an island at the north end of the Japan Sea. Brooks says there is a district of Corea called Fusang (_Science_, viii. 402). Brasseur says the great Chinese encyclopædia describes Fusang as lying east of Japan, and he thinks the descriptions correspond to the Cibola of Castañeda.

[557] Again with a commentary in _The Continental Mag._ (New York, vol. i.). Subjected to the revision of Neumann, it is reproduced in Leland’s _Fusang_ (Lond., 1875). Cf. Vining, ch. 6, who gives also (ch. 10) the account in Shan-Hai-king as translated by C. M. Williams in _Mag. Amer. Hist._, April, 1883.

[558] The pamphlets are translated in Vining, ch. 4 and 5. Paravey held to the Mexican theory, and he at least convinced Domenech (_Seven years’ residence in the great deserts of No. Amer._, Lond., 1860). Paravey published several pamphlets on subjects allied to this. His _Mémoire sur l’origine japonaise, arabe et basque de la civilisation des peuples du plateau de Bogota d’après les travaux de Humboldt et Siebold_ (Paris, 1835) is a treatise on the origin of the Muyscas or Chibchas. Jomard, in his _Les Antiquités Américaines au point de vue des progrès de la géographie_ (Paris, 1817) in the _Bull. de la Soc. Géog._, had questioned the Asiatic affiliations, and Paravey replied in a _Réfutation de l’opinion émise par Jomard que les peuples de l’Amérique n’ont jamais en aucun rapport avec ceux de l’Asie_ (Paris, 1849), originally in the _Annales de philosophie Chrétienne_ (May, 1849).

[559] Also in the _Rev. Archéologique_ (vols. x., xi.), and epitomized in Leland. Cf. also Dr. A. Godron on the Buddhist mission to America in _Annales des Voyages_ (Paris, 1864), vol. iv., and an opposing view by Vivien de St. Martin in _L’Année géographique_ (1865), iii. p. 253, who was in turn controverted by Brasseur in his _Monuments Anciens du Méxique_.

[560] This paper is reprinted in Leland.

[561] Cf. also his _Variétés Orientales_, 1872; and his “L’Amérique, etait-elle connue des Chinois à l’époque du déluge?” in the _Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France_, n. s., iii. 191.

[562] S. W. Williams, in the _Journal of the American Oriental Soc._ (vol. xi.), in controverting the views of Leland, was inclined to find Fusang in the Loo-choo Islands. This paper was printed separately as _Notices of Fusang and other countries lying east of China in the Pacific ocean_ (New Haven, 1881).

[563] A good deal of labor has been bestowed to prove this identity of Fusang with Mexico. It is held to be found in the myths and legends of the two people by Charency in his _Mythe de Votan, étude sur les origines asiatiques de la civilisation américaine_ (Alençon, 1871), drawn from the _Actes de la Soc. philologique_ (vol. ii.); and he has enforced similar views in the _Revue des questions historiques_ (vi. 283), and in his _Djemschid et Quetzalcohuatl. L’histoire légendaire de la Nouvelle-Espagne rapprochée de la source indo-européenne_ (Alençon, 1874). Humboldt thought it strange, considering other affinities,—as for instance in the Mexican calendars,—that he could find no Mexican use of phallic symbols; but Bancroft says they exist. Cf. _Native Races_, iii. 501; also see v. 40, 232; Brasseur’s _Quatre Lettres_, p. 202; and John Campbell’s paper on the traditions of Mexico and Peru as establishing such connections, in the _Compte Rendu, Congrès des Amér._ (Nancy, 1875), i. 348. Dr. Hamy saw in a monument found at Copan an inscription which he thought was the Taë-kai of the Chinese, the symbol of the essence of all things (_Bull. de la Soc. de Géog._, 1886, and _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xvi. 242, with a cut of the stone). Dall controverts this point (_Science_, viii. 402).

Others have dwelt on the linguistic resemblances. B. S. Barton in his _New Views_ pressed this side of the question. The presence of a monosyllabic tongue like the Otomi in the midst of the polysyllabic languages of Mexico has been thought strongly to indicate a survival. Cf. Manuel Najera’s _Disertacion sobre la lengua Othomi_, Mexico, 1845, and in _Amer. Philos. Soc. Trans._, n. s., v.; Ampère’s _Promenade en Amérique_, ii. 301; Prescott’s _Mexico_, iii. 396; Warden’s _Recherches_ (in Dupaix), p. 125; Latham’s _Races of Men_, 408; Bancroft’s _Nat. Races_, iii. 737; v. 39, with references. Others find Sanskrit roots in the Mexican. E. B. Tylor has indicated the Asiatic origin of certain Mexican games (_Journal of the Anthropol. Inst._, xxiv.). Ornaments of jade found in Nicaragua, while the stone is thought to be native only in Asia, is another indication, and they are more distinctively Asiatic than the jade ornaments found in Alaska (_Peabody Mus. Reports_, xviii. 414; xx. 548; _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, Jan., 1886).

On the general question of the Asiatic origin of the Mexicans see Dupaix’s _Antiquités Méxicaines_, with included papers by Lenoir, Warden, and Farcy; the _Report_ on a railroad route from the Mississippi, 1853-54 (Washington); Whipple’s and other _Reports_ on the Indian tribes; John Russell Bartlett’s _Personal Narrative_ (1854); Brasseur’s _Popul Vuh_, p. xxxix; Viollet le Duc’s belief in a “yellow race” building the Mexican and Central American monuments, in Charnay’s _Ruines Américaines_, and Charnay’s traces of the Buddhists in the _Popular Science Monthly_, July, 1879, p. 432; Le Plongeon’s belief in the connection of the Maya and Asiatic races in _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, Apr. 30, 1879, p. 113; and some papers on the ancient Mexicans and their origin by the Abbé Jolibois, Col. Parmentier, and M. Emile Guimet, which, prepared for the Soc. de Géog. de Lyon, were published separately as _De l’origine des Anciens Peuples du Méxique_ (Lyon, 1875).

A few other incidental discussions of the Fusang question are these: R. H. Major in _Select Letters of Columbus_ (1847); J. T. Short in _The Galaxy_ (1875) and in his _No. Americans of Antiquity_; Nadaillac in his _L’Amérique préhistorique_, 544; Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._ calls the story vague and improbable. In periodicals we find: _Gentleman’s Mag._, 1869, p. 333 (reprinted in _Hist. Mag._, Sept., 1869, xvi. 221), and 1870, reproduced in _Chinese Recorder_, May, 1870; Nathan Brown in _Amer. Philolog. Mag._, Aug., 1869; Wm. Speer in _Princeton Rev._, xxv. 83; _Penn Monthly_, vi. 603; _Mag. Amer. Hist._, Apr., 1883, p. 291; _Notes and Queries_, iii. 58, 78; iv. 19; _Notes and Queries in China and Japan_, Apr., May, 1869; Feb., 1870. Chas. W. Brooks maintained on the other hand (_Proc. California Acad. Sciences_, 1876; cf. Bancroft’s _Native Races_, v. 51), that the Chinese were emigrants from America. There is a map of the supposed Chinese route to America in the _Congrès des Américanistes_ (Nancy, 1875), vol. i.; and Winchell, _Pre-Adamites_, gives a chart showing different lines of approach from Asia. Stephen Powers (_Overland Monthly_, Apr., 1872, and _California Acad. Sciences_, 1875) treats the California Indians as descendants of the Chinese,—a view he modifies in the _Contrib. to Amer. Ethnology_, vol. iii., on “Tribes of California.” It is claimed that Chinese coin of the fifteenth century have been found in mounds on Vancouver’s Island. Cf. G. P. Thurston in _Mag. Amer. Hist._, xiii. p. 457. The principal lists of authorities are those in Vining (app.), and Watson’s in Anderson’s _America not discovered by Columbus_.

[564] From Easter Island to the Galapagos is 2,000 miles, thence to South America 600 more. On such long migrations by water see Waitz, _Introduction to Anthropology_, Eng. transl., p. 202. On early modes of navigation see Col. A. Lane Fox in the _Journal Anthropological Inst._ (1875), iv. 399. Otto Caspari gives a map of post-tertiary times in his _Urgeschichte der Menschheit_ (Leipzig, 1873), vol. i., in which land is made to stretch from the Marquesas Islands nearly to South America; while large patches of land lie between Asia and Mexico, to render migration practicable. Andrew Murray, in his _Geographical Distribution of Mammals_ (London, 1866), is almost compelled to admit (p. 25) that as complete a circuit of land formerly crossed the southern temperate regions as now does the northern; and Daniel Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_, holds much the same opinion. The connection of the flora of Polynesia and South America is discussed by J. D. Hooker in the _Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of the Erebus and Terror, 1839-43_, and in his _Flora of Tasmania_. Cf. _Amer. Journal of Science and Arts_, Mar., May, 1854; Jan., May, 1860.

[565] _Races of Men._

[566] _Compte Rendu_, 1877, p. 79; 1883, p. 246; the latter being called “Polynesian Antiquities, a link between the ancient civilizations of Asia and America.” Further discussions of the Polynesian migrations will be found as follows: A. W. Bradford’s _Amer. Antiquities_ (N. Y., 1841); Gallatin (_Am. Eth. Soc. Trans._, i. 176) disputed any common linguistic traces, while Bradford thought he found such; Lesson and Martinet’s _Les Polynésiens, leur origine, leurs migrations, leur langage_; Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_, ii. 344; Jules Garnier’s “Les migrations polynésiennes” in _Bull. de la Soc. de Géog. de Paris_, Jan., June, 1870; G. d’Eichthal’s “Etudes sur l’histoire primitive des races océaniennes et Américaines” in _Mem. de la Soc. Ethnologique_ (vol. ii.); Marcoy’s _Travels in South America_; C. Staniland Wake’s _Chapters on Man_, p. 200; a “Rapport de la Polynésie et l’Amérique” in the _Mémoires de la Soc. Ethnologique_, ii. 223; A. de Quatrefages de Bréau’s _Les Polynésiens et leurs migrations_ (Paris, 1866), from the _Revue des deux Mondes_, Feb., 1864; O. F. Peschel in _Ausland_, 1864, p. 348; W. H. Dall in _Bureau of Ethnology Rept._, 1881-82, p. 147. Allen’s paper, already referred to, gives references.

[567] Bancroft, _Nat. Races_, v. 44, with references, p. 48, epitomizes the story. Cf. Short, 151. There was a tradition of giants landing on the shore (Markham’s _Cieza de Leon_, p. 190). Cf. Forster’s _Voyages_, 43.

[568] A belief in the Asiatic connection has taken some curious forms. Montesinos in his _Memorias Peruanas_ held Peru to be the Ophir of Solomon. Cf. Gotfriedus Wegner’s _De Navigationis Solomonæis_ (Frankfort, 1689). Horn held Hayti to be Ophir, and he indulges in some fantastic evidences to show that the Iroquois, _i. e._ Yrcas, were Turks! Cf. Onffroy de Thoron in _Le Globe_, 1869. C. Wiener in his _L’Empire des Incas_ (ch. 2, 4) finds traces of Buddhism, and so does Hyde Clarke in his _Khita-Peruvian Epoch_ (1877). Lopez has written on _Les Races Aryennes de Pérou_ (1871). Cf. Robert Ellis, _Peruvia Scythica_. _The Quicha Language of Peru, its derivation from Central Asia with the American languages in general_ (London, 1875). Grotius held that the Peruvians were of Chinese stock. Charles Pickering’s ethnological map gives a Malay origin to the islands of the Gulf of Mexico and a part of the Pacific coast, the rest being Mongolian.

[569] The story is given in English by De Costa (_Pre-Columbian Disc. of America_, p. 85) from the _Landnámabók_, no. 107. Cf. _Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne_, ch. 13, and that of Erik the Red. Leif is said in the sagas to have met shipwrecked white people on the coasts visited by him (_Hist. Mag._, xiii. 46).

[570] _Antiquitates Americanæ_, 162, 183, 205, 210, 211, 212, 214, 319, 446-51.

[571] Brinton in _Hist. Mag._, ix. 364; Rivero and Tschudi’s _Peru_.

[572] Schöning’s _Heimskringla_. _Grönlands Historiske Mindesmærker_, i. 150.

[573] _Eyrbyggja Saga_, ch. 64, and given in English in De Costa’s _Pre-Columbian Discovery_, p. 89. Cf. Sir Walter Scott’s version of this saga and the appendix of Mallet’s _Northern Antiquities_

[574] Traces of Celtic have been discovered by some of the philologists, when put to the task, in the American languages. Cf. Humboldt, _Relation Historique_, iii. 159. Lord Monboddo held such a theory.

[575] Brinton’s _Myths of the New World_, 176. One of the earliest accounts which we have of the Cherokees is that by Henry Timberlake (London, 1765), and he remarks on their lighter complexion as indicating a possible descent from these traditionary white men.

[576] Richard Broughton’s _Monasticon Britannicum_ (London, 1655), pp. 131, 187.

[577] _A Memoir on the European Colonization of America in antehistoric times_ was contributed to the _Proceedings_ of the American Ethnological Society in 1851, to which E. G. Squier added some notes, the original paper being by Dr. C. A. A. Zestermann of Leipzig. The aim was to prove, by the similarity of remains, the connection of the peoples who built the mounds of the Ohio Valley with the early peoples of northwestern Europe, a Caucasian race, which he would identify with the settlers of Irland it Mikla, and with the coming of the white-bearded men spoken of in Mexican traditions, who established a civilization which an inundating population from Asia subsequently buried from sight. This European immigration he places at least 1,200 years before Christ. Squier’s comments are that the monumental resemblances referred to indicate similar conditions of life rather than ethnic connections.

The other advocate was Eugène Beauvois in a paper published in the _Compte Rendu du Congrès des Américanistes_ (Nancy, 1875, p. 4) as _La découverte du nouveau monde par les irlandais et les premières traces du christianisme en Amérique avant l’an 1000_, accompanied by a map, in which he makes Irland it Mikla correspond to the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Again, in the session at Luxembourg in 1877, he endeavored to connect the Irish colony with the narrative of the seaman in the Zeno accounts, in a paper which he called _Les Colonies Européennes du Markland et de l’Escociland au xiv. Siècle, et les vestiges qui en subsistèrent jusqu’aux xvi^e et xvii^e Siècles_, and in which he identifies the Estotiland of the Frislanda mariner. M. Beauvois again, at the Copenhagen meeting of the same body, read a paper on _Les Relations précolumbiennes des Gaels avec le Méxique_ (Copenhagen, 1883, p. 74), in which he elicited objections from M. Lucien Adam. Beauvois belongs to that class of enthusiasts somewhat numerous in these studies of pre-Columbian discoveries, who have haunted these Congresses of Americanists, and who see overmuch. Other references to these Irish claims are to be found in Laing’s _Heimskringla_, i. 186; Beamish’s _Discovery of America_ (London, 1841); Gravier’s _Découverte de l’Amérique_, p. 123, 137, and his _Les Normands sur la route, etc._, ch. 1; Gaffarel’s _Etudes sur les rapports de l’Amérique_, pp. 201, 214; Brasseur’s introd. to his _Popul Vuh_; De Costa’s _Pre-Columbian Discovery_, pp. xviii, xlix, lii; Humboldt’s _Cosmos_ (Bohn), ii. 607; Rask in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 21; _Journal London Geog. Soc._, viii. 125; Gay’s _Pop. Hist. U. S._, i. 53; and K. Wilhelmi’s _Island, Hvitramannaland, Grönland und Vinland, oder Der Norrmänner Leben auf Island und Grönland und deren Fahrten nach Amerika schon über 500 Jahre vor Columbus_ (Heidelberg, 1842).

[578] The account in the Landnámabók is briefly rehearsed in ch. 8 of C. W. Paijkull’s _Summer in Iceland_ (London, 1868).

[579] There are various editions, of which the best is called that of Copenhagen, 1843. The _Islendingabók_, a sort of epitome of a lost historical narrative, is considered an introduction to the _Landnámabók_. Much of the early story will be found in Latin in the _Islenzkir Annáler, sive Annales Islandici ab anno Christi 803 ad anno 1430_ (Copenhagen, 1847); in the _Scripta historica Islandorum de rebus veterum Borealium_, published by the Royal Soc. of Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen, 1828-46; and in Jacobus Langebek’s _Scriptores Rerum Danicarum medii ævi_ (Copenhagen, 1772-1878,—the ninth volume being a recently added index).

[580] A convenient survey of this early literature is in chapter 1 of the _History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North, from the most ancient times to the present, by Frederick Winkel Horn, revised by the author, and translated by Rasmus B. Anderson_ (Chicago, 1884). The text is accompanied by useful bibliographical details. Cf. B. F. De Costa in _Journal Amer. Geog. Soc._ (1880), xii. 159.

[581] Saxo Grammaticus acknowledges his dependence on the Icelandic sagas, and is thought to have used some which had not been yet put into writing.

[582] Baring-Gould in his _Iceland, its Scenes and Sagas_ (London, 1863) gives in his App. D a list of thirty-five published sagas, sixty-six local histories, twelve ecclesiastical annals, and sixty-nine Norse annals. Cf. the eclectic list in Laing’s _Heimskringla_, i. 17.

Konrad Maurer has given an elaborate essay on this early literature in his _Ueber die Ausdrücke: altnordische, altnorwegische und isländische Sprache_ (Munich, 1867), which originally appeared in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Bavarian Academy.

G. P. Marsh translated P. E. Müller’s “Origin, progress, and decline of Icelandic historical literature” in _The American Eclectic_ (N. Y., 1841,—vols. i., ii.). In 1781, Lindblom printed at Paris a French translation of Bishop Troil’s _Lettres sur l’Islande_, which contained a catalogue of books on Iceland and an enumeration of the Icelandic sagas. (Cf. Pinkerton’s _Voyages_, vol. i.) Chavanne’s _Bibliography of the Polar Regions_, p. 95, has a section on Iceland.

Solberg’s list of illustrative works, appended to Anderson’s version of Horn’s _Lit. of the Scandinavian North_, is useful so far as the English language goes. Periodical contributions also appear in _Poole’s Index_ (p. 622) and _Supplement_, p. 214.

Burton (_Ultima Thule_, i. 239) enumerates the principal writers on Iceland from Arngrimur Jónsson down, including the travellers of this century.

[583] The more general histories of Scandinavia, like Sinding’s English narrative,—not a good book, but accessible,—yield the comparisons more readily.

[584] There are also German (Gotha, 1844-75) and French versions (Paris). The best German version, _Geschichte Schwedens_ (Hamburg and Gotha, 1832-1887), is in six volumes, a part of the _Geschichte der europäischen Staaten_. Vol. 1-3, by E. G. Geijer, is translated by O. P. Leffler; vol. 4, by F. F. Carlson, is translated by J. G. Petersen; vol. 5, 6, by F. F. Carlson.

[585] Published in German at Lübeck in 1854 as _Das heroische Zeitalter der Nordisch-Germanischen Völker und die Wikinger-Züge_.

[586] Maurer had long been a student of Icelandic lore, and his _Isländische Volkssagen der Gegenwart gesammelt und verdeutscht_ (Leipzig, 1860) is greatly illustrative of the early north. Conybeare (_Place of Iceland in the History of European Institutions_, preface) says: “To any one writing on Iceland the elaborate works of the learned Maurer afford at once a help and difficulty: a help in so far as they shed the fullest light upon the subjects; a difficulty in that their painstaking completeness has brought together well-nigh everything that can be said.”

[587] What is known as the Kristni Saga gives an account of this change. Cf. Eugène Beauvois, _Origines et fondation du plus ancien évêché du nouveau monde. Le diocèse de Gardhs en Grœnland, 986-1126_ (Paris, 1878), an extract from the _Mémoires de la Soc. d’Histoire, etc., de Beaune_; C. A. V. Conybeare’s _Place of Iceland in the history of European institutions_ (1877); Maurer’s _Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des germanischen Nordens_; Wheaton’s _Northmen_; Worsaae’s _Danes and Norwegians in England_, p. 332; Jacob Rudolph Keyser’s _Private Life of the Old Northmen_, as translated by M. R. Barnard (London, 1868), and his _Religion of the Northmen_, as translated by B. Pennock (N. Y., 1854); _Quarterly Review_, January, 1862; and references in McClintock and Strong’s _Cyclopædia_, under Iceland.

[588] Such are the Swedish work of A. M. Strinhold, known in the German of E. F. Frisch as _Wikingzüge, Staatsverfassung und Sitten der alten Scandinaver_ (Hamburg, 1839-41).

A summarized statement of life in Iceland in the early days is held to be well made out in Hans O. H. Hildebrand’s _Lifvet þå Island under Sagotiden_ (Stockholm, 1867), and in A. E. Holmberg’s _Nordbon under Hednatiden_ (Stockholm). J. A. Worsaae published his _Vorgeschichte des Nordens_ at Hamburg in 1878. It was improved in a Danish edition in 1880, and from this H. F. Morland Simpson made the _Prehistory of the North, based on contemporary materials_ (London, 1886), with a memoir of Worsaae (d. 1885), the foremost scholar in this northern lore.

[589] This book is recognized as one of the best commentaries and most informing books on Icelandic history, and this writer’s introduction to Gudbrand Vigfússon’s _Icelandic-English Dictionary_ (3 vols., Cambridge, Eng., 1869, 1870, 1874) is of scholarly importance.

[590] The millennial celebration of the settlement of Iceland in 1874 gave occasion to a variety of books and papers, more or less suggestive of the early days, like Samuel Kneeland’s _American in Iceland_ (Boston. 1876); but the enumeration of this essentially descriptive literature need not be undertaken here.

[591] _Antiquitates Americanæ_, pp. 1-76, with an account of the Greenland MSS. (p. 255). Müller’s _Sagenbibliothek_. Arngrimur Jónsson’s _Grönlandia_ (Iceland, 1688). A fac-simile of the title is in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, ii., no. 1356. A translation by Rev. J. Sephton is in the _Proc. Lit. and Philos. Soc. of Liverpool_, vol. xxxiv. 183, and separately, Liverpool, 1880. There is a paper in the _Jahresbericht der geographischen Gesellschaft in München für 1885_ (Munich, 1886), p. 71, by Oskar Brenner, on “Grönland im Mittelalter nach einer altnorwegischen Quelle.”

Some of the earliest references are: Christopherson Claus’ _Den Grölandske Chronica_ (Copenhagen, 1608), noticed in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_, ii., no. 64. Gerald de Veer’s _True and perfect description of three voyages_ speaks in its title (_Carter-Brown_, ii. 38) of “the countrie lying under 80 degrees, which is thought to be Greenland, where never man had been before.” Antoine de la Sale wrote between 1438 and 1447 a curious book, printed in 1527 as _La Salade_, in which he refers to Iceland and Greenland (Gronnellont), where white bears abound (Harrisse, _Bib. Am. Vet._, no. 140).

[592] This book is now rare. Dufossé prices it at 50 francs; F. S. Ellis,—London. 1884, at £5.5.0. Before Torfæus, probably the best known book was Isaac de la Peyrère’s _Relation du Groenland_ (Paris, 1647). It is one of the earliest books to give an account of the Eskimos. It was again printed in 1674 in _Recueil de Voyages du Nord_. A Dutch edition at Amsterdam in 1678 (_Nauwkenrige Beschrijvingh van Groenland_) was considerably enlarged with other matter, and this edition was the basis of the German version published at Nuremberg, 1679. Peyrère’s description will be found in English in a volume published by the Hakluyt Society in 1855, where it is accompanied by two maps of the early part of the seventeenth century. Cf. Carter-Brown, ii., no. 1192, note; Sabin, x. p. 70.

[593] Pilling (_Eskimo Bibliog._, p. 20) gives the most careful account of editions. Cf. Sabin, v. 66. A Dutch translation at Haarlem in 1767 was provided with better and larger maps than the original issue; and this version was again brought out with a changed title in 1786. There was a Swedish ed. at Stockholm in 1769, and a reprint of the original German at Leipzig in 1770, and it is included in the _Bibliothek der neuesten Reisebeschreibungen_ (Frankfort, 1779-1797), vol. xx. Cf. Carter-Brown, ii., nos. 1443, 1576, 1577, 1671, 1728.

[594] This constitutes in 3 vols. a sort of supplement to the _Antiquitates Americanæ_, Cf. _Dublin Review_, xxvii. 35; _Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog. de Paris_, 3d ser., vol. vi., and a synopsis of the _Mindesmæker_ in _The Sacristy_, Feb. 1, 1871 (London).

[595] The principal ruin is that of a church, and it will be found represented in the Antiquitates Americanæ, and again by Nordenskjöld, Steenstrup, J. T. Smith (_Discovery of America_, etc.), Horsford; and, not to name more, in Hayes’s _Land of Desolation_ (and in the French version in _Tour du Monde_, xxvi.).

[596] Rafn in his _Americas arctiske landes Gamle Geographie efter de Nordiske Oldskrifter_ (Copenhagen, 1845) gives the seals of some of the Greenland bishops, various plans of the different ruins, a view of the Katortok church with its surroundings, engraving of the different runic inscriptions, and a map of the Julianehaab district.

[597] This tendency of the Scandinavian writers is recognized among themselves. Horn (Anderson’s translation, 324) ascribes it to “an unbridled fancy and want of critical method rather than to any wilful perversion of historical truth. This tendency owed its origin to an intense patriotism, a leading trait in the Swedish character, which on this very account was well-nigh incorrigible.”

[598] Dasent translates from the preface to _Egils Saga_ (Reikjavik, 1856): “The sagas show no wilful purpose to tell untruths, but simply are proofs of _the beliefs and turns of thought of men in the age when the sagas were reduced to writing_” (_Burnt Njal_, i. p. xiii).

[599] Rink (_Danish Greenland_, p. 3) says of the sagas that “they exist only in a fragmentary condition, and bear the general character of popular traditions to such a degree that they stand much in need of being corroborated by collateral proofs, if we are wholly to rely upon them in such a question as an ancient colonization of America.” So he proceeds to enumerate the kind of evidence, which is sufficient in Greenland, but is wholly wanting in other parts of America, and to point out that the trustworthiness of the sagas of the Vinland voyages exists only in regard to their general scope.

Dasent, in the introduction of Vigfússon’s _Icelandic Dictionary_, says of the sagas: “Written at various periods by scribes more or less fitted for the task, they are evidently of very varying authority.” The Scandinavian authorities class the sagas as mythical histories, as those relating to Icelandic history (subdivided into general, family, personal, ecclesiastical), and as the lives of rulers.

[600] Anderson’s translation, _Lit. of the Scand. North_, p. 81.

[601] Laing (_Heimskringla_, i. 23) says: “Arne Magnussen was the greatest antiquary who never wrote; his judgments and opinions are known from notes, selections, and correspondence, and are of great authority at this day in the saga literature. Torfæus consulted him in his researches.”

[602] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 20.

[603] Oswald Moosmüller’s _Europäer in Amerika vor Columbus_ (Regensburg, 1879, p. 4) enumerates the manuscripts in the royal library in Copenhagen.

[604] A. E. Wollheim’s _Die Nat. lit. der Scandinavier_ (Berlin, 1875-77), p. 47. Turner’s _Anglo Saxons_, book iv. ch. 1. Mallet’s _No. Antiq._ (1847), 393

[605] Cf. G. H. Pertz, _Monumenta Germaniæ historica_, 1846, vol. vii. cap. 247. Of the different manuscripts, some call Vinland a “regio” and others an “insula.”

[606] Discovered in the seventeenth century in a monastery on an island close by the Icelandic coast, and now in the royal library in Copenhagen. Cf. Laing’s introduction to his edition of the _Heimskringla_, vol. i. p. 157. Horn says of this codex: “The book was written towards the end of the fourteenth century by two Icelandic priests, and contains in strange confusion and wholly without criticism a large number of sagas, poems, and stories. No other manuscript confuses things on so vast a scale.” Anderson’s translation of Horn’s _Lit. of the Scandin. North_, p. 60. Cf. _Flateyjarbok. En Samling af Norske Konge-Sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om Begivenheder i og Udenfor Norge samt Annaler_ (Christiania, 1860); and Vigfússon’s and Unger’s edition of 1868, also at Christiania. The best English account of the _Codex Flatoyensis_ is by Gudbrand Vigfússon in the preface to his _Icelandic Sagas_, published under direction of the Master of the Rolls, London, 1887, vol. i. p. xxv.

[607] For texts, see C. C. Rafn’s edition of _Kong Olaf Tryggvesons Saga_ (Copenhagen, 1826), and Munch’s edition of _Kong Olaf Tryggvesön’s Saga_ (Christiania, 1853). Cf. also P. A. Munch’s _Norges Konge-Sagaer_ of Snorri Sturleson, Sturla Thordsson, etc. (Christiania, 1859).

[608] The _Codex Flatoyensis_ says that it was sixteen winters after the settlement of Greenland before Leif went to Norway, and that in the next year he sailed to Vinland.

[609] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 21.

[610] These sagas are given in Icelandic, Danish, and Latin in Rafn’s _Antiquitates Americanæ_ (Copenhagen, 1837). Versions or abstracts, more or less full, of all or of some of them are given by Beamish, in his _Discovery of America by the Northmen_ (London, 1841), whose text is reprinted by Slafter, in his _Voyages of the Northmen_ (Boston, 1877). J. Elliot Cabot, in the Mass. Quart. Review, March, 1849, copied in part in Higginson’s _Amer. Explorers_. Blackwell, in his supplementary chapters to Mallet’s _Northern Antiquities_ (London, Bohn’s library). B. F. De Costa, in his _Pre-Columbian Discovery of America_ (Albany, 1868). Eben Norton Horsford, in his _Discovery of America by Norsemen_ (Boston, 1888). Beauvois, in his _Découvertes des Scandinaves en Amérique_ (Paris, 1859). P. E. Müller, in his _Sagabibliothek_ (Copenhagen, 1816-20), and a German version of part of it by Lachmann, _Sagenbibliothek des Scandinavischen Alterthums in Aussügen_ (Berlin, 1816).

[611] When, however, Peringskiöld edited the Heimskringla, in 1697, he interpolated eight chapters of a more particular account of the Vinland voyages, which drew forth some animadversions from Torfæus in 1705, when he published his _Historia Vinlandiæ_. It was later found that Peringskiöld had drawn these eight chapters from the _Codex Flatoyensis_, which particular MS. was unknown to Torfæus. When Laing printed his edition of the _Heimskringla, The Sea Kings of Norway_ (London, 1844), he translated these eight chapters in his appendix (vol. iii. 344). Laing (_Heimskringla_, i. 27) says: “Snorro Sturleson has done for the history of the Northmen what Livy did for the history of the Romans,”—a rather questionable tribute to the verity of the saga history, in the light of the most approved comments on Livy. Cf. Horn, in Anderson’s translation, _Lit. of the Scandinavian North_ (Chicago, 1884), p. 56, with references, p. 59.

[612] J. Fulford Vicary’s _Saga Time_ (Lond., 1887). Some time in the fifteenth century, a monk, Thomas Gheysmer, made an abridgment of Saxo, alleging that he “had said much rather for the sake of adornment than in behalf of truth.” The Canon Christiern Pederson printed the first edition of Saxo at Paris in 1514 (Anderson’s Horn’s _Lit. Scandin. North_, p. 102). This writer adds: “The entire work rests exclusively on oral tradition, which had been gathered by Saxo, and which he repeated precisely as he had heard it, for in the whole chronicle there is no trace of criticism proper.... Saxo must also undoubtedly have had Icelandic sagamen as authorities for the legendary part of his work; but there is not the slightest evidence to show that he ever had a written Icelandic saga before him.... In this part of the work he betrays no effort to separate fact from fiction, ... and he has in many instances consciously or unconsciously adorned the original material.” Horn adds that the last and best edition is that of P. E. Müller and J. Velchow, _Saxonis Grammatici Historia Danica_ (Copenhagen, 1839).

[613] Humboldt (_Crit. Exam._, ii. 120) represented that Ortelius referred to these voyages in 1570; but Palfrey (_Hist. New England_, i. 51) shows that the language cited by Humboldt was not used by Ortelius till in his edition of 1592, and that then he referred to the Zeno narrative.

[614] See _post_, Vol. IV. p. 492.

[615] His account is followed by Malte Brun in his _Précis de la Géographie_ (i. 395). Cf. also _Annales des Voyages_ (Paris, 1810), x. 50, and his _Géographie Universelle_ (Paris, 1841). Pinkerton, in his _Voyages_ (London, 1814), vol. xvii., also followed Torfæus.

[616] J. J. Wahlstedt’s _Iter in Americam_ (Upsala, 1725). Cf. _Brinley Catal._, i. 59.

[617] _Observatio historica ad Frisonum navigatione fortuita in Americam sec. xi. facta_ (Magdeburg, 1741).

[618] _Franklin’s Works_, Philad., 1809, vol. vi.; Sparks’s ed., viii. 69.

[619] This is the book which furnished the text in an English dress (London, 1770) known as _Northern Antiquities_, and a part of his account is given in the _American Museum_ (Philad., 1789). In the Edinburgh edition of 1809 it is called: _Northern antiquities: or a description of the manners, customs, religion and laws, of the ancient Danes, including those of our Saxon ancestors. With a translation of the Edda and other pieces, from the ancient Icelandic tongue. Translated from “L’introduction à l’histoire de Dannemarc, &c.,” par Mons. Mallet. With additional notes by the English translator [Bishop Percy], and Goranson’s Latin version of the Edda_. In 2 vols. The chapters defining the locations are omitted, and others substituted, in the reprint of the _Northern Antiquities_ in Bohn’s library.

[620] There are French and English versions.

[621] Edinburgh, 1818; Boston, 1831.

[622] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, 1865, p. 184.

[623] _Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopædia._

[624] Allibone, iii. 2667.

[625] Irving, in reviewing the book in the _No. Am. Rev._, Oct., 1832, avoided the question of the Norse discovery. (Cf. his _Spanish Papers_, vol. ii., and Rice’s _Essays from the No. Am. Rev._) C. Robinson, in his _Discoveries in the West_ (ch. 1), borrows from Wheaton.

[626] Octavo ed., i. pp. 5, 6.

[627] Orig. ed., iii. 313; last revision, ii. 132.

[628] This society, Kongelige Nordiske Oldskrift-Selskab, since 1825, has been issuing works and periodicals illustrating all departments of Scandinavian archæology (cf. Webb, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 177), and has gathered cabinets and museums, sections of which are devoted to American subjects. C. C. Rafn’s _Cabinet d’antiquités Américaines à Copenhague_ (Copenhagen, 1858); _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, xiv. 316; Slafter’s introd. to his _Voyages of the Northmen_.

[629] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 81; _Am. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, April, 1865; _N. E. Hist. Geneal. Reg._, 1865, p. 273; _To-day_, ii. 176.

[630] Professor Willard Fiske has paid particular attention to the early forms of the Danish in the Icelandic literature. In 1885 the British Museum issued a _Catalogue of the books printed in Iceland from A.D. 1578 to 1880 in the library of the British Museum_. In 1886 Mr. Fiske privately printed at Florence _Bibliographical Notices, i.: Books printed in Iceland, 1578-1844, a supplement to the British Museum Catalogue,_ which enumerates 139 titles with full bibliographical detail and an index. He refers also to the principal bibliographical authorities. Laing’s introduction to the _Heimskringla_ gives a survey.

[631] Cf. list of their several issues in Scudder’s _Catal. of Scient. Serials_, nos. 640, 654, and the Rafn bibliography in Sabin, xvi. nos. 67,466-67,486. In addition to its Danish publications, the chief of which interesting to the American archæologist being the _Antiquarisk Tidsskrift_ (1845-1864), sometimes known as the _Revue Archéologique et Bulletin_, the society, under its more familiar name of Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, has issued its _Mémoires_, the first series running from 1836 to 1860, in 4 vols., and the second beginning in 1866. These contain numerous papers involving the discussion of the Northmen voyages, including a condensed narrative by Rafn, “Mémoire sur la découverte de l’Amérique au 10^e siècle,” which was enlarged and frequently issued separately in French and other languages (1838-1843), and is sometimes found in English as a _Supplement to the Antiquitates Americanæ_, and was issued in New York (1838) as _America discovered in the tenth century_. In this form (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 187) it was widely used here and in Europe to call attention to Rafn’s folio, _Antiquitates Americanæ_.

The _Mémoires_ also contained another paper by Rafn, _Aperçu de l’ancienne géographie des régions arctiques de l’Amérique, selon les rapports contenus dans les Sagas du Nord_ (Copenhagen, 1847), which also concerns the Vinland voyages, and is repeated in the _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_ (1849), i. 277.

[632] _Antiqvitates Americanæ sive scriptores septentrionales rerum ante-Columbianarum in America. Samling af de i nordens oldskrifter indeholdte efterretninger om de gamle nordboers opdagelsesreiser til America fra det 10de til det 14de aarhundrede. Edidit Societas regia antiquariorum Septentrionalium_ (Hafniæ, 1837). CONTENTS: Præfatio.—Conspectus codicum membraneorum, in quibus terrarum Americanarum mentio fit.—America discovered by the Scandinavians in the tenth century. (An abstract of the historical evidence contained in this work.)—Pættir af Eireki Rauda ok Grænlendingum.—Saga Porfinns Karlsefnis ok Snorra Porbrandssonar.—Breviores relationes: De inhabitatione Islandiæ; De inhabitatione Grœnlandiæ; De Ario Maris filio; De Björne Breidvikensium athleta; De Gudleivo Gudlœgi filio; Excerpta ex annalibus Islandorum; Die mansione Grœnlandorum in locis Borealibus; Excerpta e geographicis scriptis veterum Islandorum; Carmen Færöicum, in quo Vinlandiæ mentio fit; Adami Bremensis Relatio de Vinlandia; Descriptio quorumdam monumentorum Europæorum, quæ in oris Grönlandiæ ocidentalibus reperta et detecta sunt; Descriptio vetusti monumenti in regione Massachusetts reperti; Descriptio vetustorum quorundam monumentorum in Rhode Island.—Annotationes geographicæ; Islandia et Grönlandia; Indagatio Arctoarum Americæ regionum.—Indagatio Orientalium Americæ regionum.—Addenda et emendanda.—Indexes. The larger works are in Icelandic, Danish, and Latin.

Cf. also his _Antiquités Américaines d’après les monuments historiques des Islandais et des anciens Scandinaves_ (Copenhagen, 1845). An abstract of the evidence is given in the _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_ (viii. 114), and it is upon this that H. H. Bancroft depends in his _Native Races_ (v. 106). Cf. also _Ibid._ v. 115-116; and his _Cent. America_, i. 74. L. Dussieux in his _Les Grands Faits de l’Histoire de la Géographie_ (Paris, 1882; vol. i. 147, 165) follows Rafn and Malte-Brun. So does Brasseur de Bourbourg in his _Hist. de Nations Civilisées_, i. 18; and Bachiller y Morales in his _Antigüedades Americanas_ (Havana, 1845).

Great efforts were made by Rafn and his friends to get reviews of his folio in American periodicals; and he relied in this matter upon Dr. Webb and others, with whom he had been in correspondence in working up his geographical details (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, ii. 97, 107; viii. 189, etc.), and so late as 1852 he drafted in English a new synopsis of the evidence, and sent it over for distribution in the United States (_Ibid._ ii. 500; _New Jersey Hist. Soc. Proc._, vi.; _N. E. Hist. Geneal. Reg._, 1853, p. 13). So far as weight of character went, there was a plenty of it in his reviewers: Edward Everett in the _No. Amer. Rev._, Jan., 1838; Alexander Everett in the _U. S. Magazine and Democratic Review_ (1838); George Folsom in the _N. Y. Review_ (1838); H. R. Schoolcraft in the _Amer. Biblical Repository_ (1839). Cf. _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 182-3; _Poole’s Index_, 28, 928.

[633] Bohn’s ed., English transl., ii. 603; Lond. ed., 1849, ii. 233-36. Humboldt expresses the opinion that Columbus, during his visit to Iceland, got no knowledge of the stories, so little an impression had they made on the public mind (_Cosmos_, Bohn, ii. 611), and that the enemies of Columbus in his famous lawsuit, when every effort was made to discredit his enterprise, did not instance his Iceland experience, should be held to indicate that no one in southern Europe believed in any such prompting at that time. Wheaton and Prescott (_Ferdinand and Isabella_, orig. ed., ii. 118, 131) hold similar opinions. (Cf. Vol. II. p. 33.) Dr. Webb says that Irving held back from accepting the stories of the saga, for fear that they could be used to detract from Columbus’ fame. Rafn and his immediate sympathizers did not fail to make the most of the supposition that Columbus had in some way profited by his Iceland experience. Laing thinks Columbus must have heard of the voyages, and De Costa (_Columbus and the Geographers of the North_) thinks that the bruit of the Northmen voyages extended sufficiently over Europe to render it unlikely that it escaped the ears of Columbus. Cf. further an appendix in Irving’s _Columbus_, and Mallet’s _Northern Antiquities_, Bohn’s ed., 267, in refutation of the conclusions of Finn Magnusen in the _Nordisk Tidsskrift_. It has been left for the unwise and overtopped advocates of a later day, like Goodrich and Marie A. Brown, to go beyond reason in an indiscriminate denunciation of the Genoese. The latter writer, in her _Icelandic Discoverers of America_ (Boston, 1888), rambles over the subject in a jejune way, and easily falls into errors, while she pursues her main purpose of exposing what she fancies to be a deep-laid scheme of the Pope and the Catholic Church to conceal the merits of the Northmen and to capture the sympathies of Americans in honoring the memory of Columbus in 1892. It is simply a reactionary craze from the overdone raptures of the school of Roselly de Lorgues and the other advocates of the canonization of Columbus, in Catholic Europe.

[634] This book is for the sagas the basis of the most useful book on the subject, Edmund Farwell Slafter’s _Voyages of the Northmen to America_. _Including extracts from Icelandic Sagas relating to Western voyages by Northmen in the 10th and 11th centuries in an English translation by Nathaniel Ludlow Beamish; with a synopsis of the historical evidence and the opinion of professor Rafn as to the places visited by the Scandinavians on the coast of America_. _With an introduction_ (Boston, 1877), published by the Prince Society. Slafter’s opinion is that the narratives are “true in their general outlines and important features.”

[635] _Island, Huitramannaland, Grönland und Vinland_ (Heidelberg, 1842).

[636] _Die Entdeckung von Amerika durch die Isländer im zehnten und eilften Jahrhundert_ (Braunschweig, 1844). Cf. E. G. Squier’s _Discovery of America by the Northmen, a critical review of the works of Hermes, Rafn and Beamish_ (1849).

[637] Cf. his paper in the _Quebec Lit. and Hist. Soc. Trans._, 1865.

[638] Beauvois also made at a later period other contributions to the subject: _Les derniers vestiges du Christianisme prêchés du X^e au XIV^e siècles dans le Markland et le Grande-Irlande, les porte-croix de la Gaspésie at de l’Arcadie_ (Paris, 1877) which appeared originally in the _Annales de philosophie Chrétiennes_, Apr., 1877; and _Les Colonies européennes du Markland at de l’Escociland au XIV^e siècle et les vestiges qui en subsistèrent jusqu’aux XVI^e et XVII^e siècle_ (Luxembourg, 1878), being taken from the _Compte Rendu_ of the Luxembourg meeting of the Congrès des Américanistes.

[639] _Prehistoric Man_, 3d ed., ii. 83, 85. Cf. also his _Historic Footprints in America_, extracted from the _Canadian Journal_, Sept., 1864.

[640] Joseph Williamson, in the _Hist. Mag._, Jan., 1869 (x. 30), sought to connect with the Northmen certain ancient remains along the coast of Maine.

[641] He was rather caustically taken to account by Henry Cabot Lodge, in the _No. Am. Review_, vol. cxix. Cf. Michel Hardy’s _Les Scandinaves dans l’Amérique du Nord_ (Dieppe, 1874). An April hoax which appeared in a Washington paper in 1867, about some runes discovered on the Potomac, had been promptly exposed in this country (_Hist. Mag._, Mar. and Aug., 1869), but it had been accepted as true in the _Annuaire de la Société Américaine_ in 1873, and Gaffarel (_Etudes sur les Rapports de l’Amérique avant Columbus_, Paris, 1869, p. 251) and Gravier (p. 139) was drawn into the snare. (Cf. Whittlesey’s _Archæol. frauds_ in the _Western Reserve Hist. Soc. Tracts_, no. 9, and H. W. Haynes in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Jan., 1888, p. 59.) In a later monograph, _Les Normands sur la route des Indes_ (Rouen, 1880), Gravier, while still accepting the old exploded geographical theories, undertook further to prove that the bruits of the Norse discoveries instigated the seamen of Normandy to similar ventures, and that they visited America in ante-Columbian days.

[642] There is an authorized German version, _Die erste Entdeckung von Amerika_, by Mathilde Mann (Hamburg, 1888).

[643] _American in Iceland_ (Boston, 1876).

[644] _Land of Desolation_ (New York, 1872). There is a French version in the _Tour du Monde_, xxvi.

[645] _Lectures delivered in America_ (Philad., 1875),—third lecture.

[646] _Europäer in Amerika vor Columbus, nach Quellen bearbeitet von P. Oswald Moosmüller_ (Regensburg, 1879).

[647] _Larger History of the United States_ (N. Y., 1886).

[648] _Discoveries of America_ (N. Y., 1884).

[649] Particularly Beauvois, already mentioned, and Dr. E. Löffler, on the Vinland Excursions of the Ancient Scandinavians, at the Copenhagen meeting, _Compte Rendu_ (1883), p. 64. Cf. also Michel Hardy’s _Les Scandinaves dans l’Amérique du Nord au X^e Siècle_ (Dieppe, 1874).

[650] R. G. Haliburton, in _Roy. Geog. Soc. Proc._ (Jan., 1885); Thomas Morgan, in _Roy. Hist. Soc. Trans._ iii. 75.

[651] E. N. Horsford’s _Discovery of America by the Northmen_ (Boston, 1888); Anderson’s _America not discovered by Columbus_, 3d ed., p. 30; _N. Y. Nation_, Nov. 17, 1887; _Mag. Amer. Hist._, Mar., 1888, p. 223.

[652] Remarks of Wm. Everett and Chas. Deane in the society’s _Proceedings_, May, 1880.

[653] _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, Dec., 1887. The most incautious linguistic inferences and the most uncritical cartological perversions are presented by Eben Norton Horsford in his _Discovery of America by the Northmen—address at the unveiling of the statue of Leif Eriksen, Oct. 29, 1887_ (Boston, 1888). Cf. Oscar Brenner in _Beilage zur Allgemeinen Zeitung_ (Munich, Dec. 6, 1888). A trustful reliance upon the reputations of those who have in greater or less degree accepted the details of the sagas characterizes a paper by Mrs. Ole Bull in the _Mag. of Amer. Hist._, Mar., 1888. She is naturally not inclined to make much allowance for the patriotic zeal of the northern writers.

[654] The best list is in P. B. Watson’s “Bibliog. of Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America,” originally in the _Library Journal_, vi. 259, but more complete in Anderson’s _America not discovered by Columbus_ (3d ed., Chicago, 1883). Cf. also Chavanne’s _Literature of the Polar Regions_; Th. Solberg’s Bibliog. of Scandinavia, in English, with magazine articles, in F. W. Horn’s _Hist. of the lit. of the Scandinavian North_ (1884, pp. 413-500). There is a convenient brief list in Slafter’s _Voyages of the Northmen_ (pp. 127-140), and a not very well selected one in Marie A. Brown’s _Icelandic Discoverers_. _Poole’s Index_ indicates the considerable amount of periodical discussions. The Scandinavian writers are mainly referred to by Miss Brown and Mrs. Bull.

[655] Forster finds a corruption of Norvegia (Norway) in Norumbega. Rafn finds the Norse elements in the words Massachusetts, Nauset, and Mount Hope (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, viii. 194-198). The word Hole, used as synonymous to harbor in various localities along the Vineyard Sound, has been called a relic of the Icelandic Holl, a hill (_Mag. Amer. Hist._, June, 1882, p. 431; Jos. S. Fay in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xii. 334; and in Anderson, _America not discovered by Columbus_, 3d ed.).

Brasseur de Bourbourg in his _Nations civilisées du Méxique_, and more emphatically in his _Grammaire Quichée_, had indicated what he thought a northern incursion before Leif, in certain seeming similarities to the northern tongues of those of Guatemala. Cf. also _Nouv. Annales des Voyages_, 6th ser., xvi. 263; _N. Y. Tribune_, Nov. 21, 1855; Bancroft’s _Native Races_, iii. 762.

[656] _De origine gentium Americanarum_ (1642).

[657] _Nouv. Ann. des Voyages_, 6th ser., vols. iii. and vi.

[658] In Charnay’s _Ruines_, etc. (Paris, 1867).

[659] _Découverte de l’America par les Normands_ (Paris, 1864).

[660] H. H. Bancroft, _Nat. Races_, v. 115-16, gives references on the peopling of America from the northwest of Europe.

[661] _Trans. Roy. Soc. Lit._, xiv. 1887; also printed separately as _Mythology, legends and Folk-lore of the Algonquins_. Cf. also his _Algonquin Legends of New England_ (1885). Cf. D. G. Brinton in _Amer. Antiquarian_, May, 1885.

[662] Mr. Mitchell, of the U. S. Coast Survey, has attended to this part of the subject, and Horsford (p. 28) quotes his MS. He finds on the Massachusetts coast what he thinks a sufficient correspondence to the description of the sagas.

[663] So plain a matter as the length of the longest summer day would indubitably point to an absolute parallel of latitude as determining the site of Vinland, if there was no doubt in the language of the saga. Unfortunately there is a wide divergence of opinion in the meaning of the words to be depended upon, even among Icelandic scholars; and the later writers among them assert that Rafn (_Antiq. Amer._ 436) and Magnusen in interpreting the language to confirm their theory of the Rhode Island bays have misconceived. Their argument is summarized in the French version of Wheaton. John M’Caul translated Finn Magnusen’s “Ancient Scandinavian divisions of the times of day,” in the _Mémoire de la Soc. Roy. des Antiq. du Nord_ (1836-37). Rask disputes Rafn’s deductions (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, xviii. 22). Torfæus, who is our best commentator after all, says it meant Newfoundland. Robertson put it at 58° north. Dahlmann in his _Forschungen_ (vol. i.) places it on the coast of Labrador. Horsford (p. 66) at some length admits no question that it must have been between 41° and 43° north. Cf. Laing’s _Heimskringla_, i. 173; Palfrey’s _New England_, i. 55; De Costa’s _Pre-Columbian Disc._, p. 33; Weise’s _Discoveries of America_, 31; and particularly Vigfússon in his _English-Icelandic Dictionary_ under “Eykt.”

[664] “The discovery of America,” says Laing (_Heimskringla_, i. 154), “rests entirely upon documentary evidence which cannot, as in the case of Greenland, be substantiated by anything to be discovered in America.” Laing and many of the commentators, by some strange process of reasoning, have determined that the proof of these MS. records being written before Columbus’ visit to Iceland in 1477 is sufficient to establish the priority of discovery for the Northmen, as if it was nothing in the case that the sagas may or may not be good history; and nothing that it was the opinion entertained in Europe at that time that Greenland and the more distant lands were not a new continent, but a prolongation of Europe by the north. It is curious, too, to observe that, treating of events after 1492, Laing is quite willing to believe in any saga being “filled up and new invented,” but is quite unwilling to believe anything of the kind as respects those written anterior to 1492; and yet he goes on to prove conclusively that the _Flatoyensis Codex_ is full of fable, as when the saga man makes the eider-duck lay eggs where during the same weeks the grapes ripen and intoxicate when fresh, and the wheat forms in the ear! Laing nevertheless rests his case on the _Flatoyensis Codex_ in its most general scope, and calls poets, but not antiquaries, those who attempt to make any additional evidence out of imaginary runes or the identification of places.

[665] It must be remembered that this divergence was not so wide to the Northmen as it seems to us. With them the Atlantic was sometimes held to be a great basin that was enclasped from northwestern Europe by a prolongation of Scandinavia into Greenland, Helluland, and Markland, and it was a question if the more distant region of Vinland did not belong rather to the corresponding prolongation of Africa on the south. Cf. De Costa, _Pre-Columbian Disc._, 108; _Hist. Mag._, xiii. 46.

[666] He wrote “Here for the first time will be found indicated the precise spot where the ancient Northmen held their intercourse.” The committee of the Mass. Hist. Soc. objected to this extreme confidence. _Proceedings_, ii. 97, 107, 500, 505.

[667] Reproduction of part of the plate in the _Antiquitates Americanæ_, after a drawing by J. R. Bartlett. The engravings of the rock are numerous: _Mem. Amer. Acad._, iii.; the works of Beamish, J. T. Smith, Gravier, Gay, Higginson, etc.; Laing’s _Heimskringla_; the French ed. of Wheaton; Hermes’ _Entdeckung von America_; Schoolcraft’s _Ind. Tribes_, i. 114, iv. 120; Drake’s ed., Philad., 1884, i. p. 88; the Copenhagen _Compte Rendu, Congrès des Américanistes_, p. 70, from a photograph. The Hitchcock Museum at Amherst, Mass., had a cast, and one was shown at the Albany meeting (1836) of the Am. Asso. for the Adv. of Science. The rock was conveyed by deed in 1861 to the Roy. Soc. of Northern Antiquaries (_Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, v. 226; vi. 252), but the society subsequently relinquished their title to a Boston committee, who charged itself with the care of the monument; but in doing so the Danish antiquaries disclaimed all belief in its runic character (_Mag. Amer. Hist._, iii. 236).

[668] De Costa, _Pre-Col. Disc._, 29; _N. E. Hist. Geneal. Reg._, xviii. 37; Gay, _Pop. Hist._, i. 41; _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, viii. 72; _Am. Geog. Soc. Journal_, 1870, p. 50; _Amer. Naturalist_, Aug. and Sept., 1879.

[669] _Am. Ass. Adv. Science, Proc._ (1856), ii. 214.

[670] Cf. paper on the site of Vinland in _Hist. Mag._, Feb., 1874, p. 94; Alex. Farnum’s _Visit of the Northmen to Rhode Island_ (_R. I. Hist. Tracts_, no. 2, 1877). The statement of the sagas that there was no frost in Vinland and grass did not wither in winter compels some of the identifiers to resort to the precession of the equinox as accounting for changes of climate (Gay’s _Pop. Hist._, i. 50).

[671] E. G. Squier in _Ethnological Journal_, 1848; Wilson’s Prehist. Man, ii. 98; _Amer. Ethnol. Soc. Trans._, i. 392; Schoolcraft’s _Indian Tribes_, iv. 118; _Mém. de la Soc. royale des Antiq. du Nord_, 1840-44, p. 127.

[672] _Amer. Philos. Soc. Proc._, May 2, 1884 (by Henry Phillips, Jr.); _Numismatic and Antiq. Soc. of Philad., Proc._, 1884, p. 17; Geo. S. Brown’s _Yarmouth_ (Boston, 1888).