past, to embellish her pages. Few have given sufficient credit to the story to take the pains to search for the evidence of its truth or probability, wondering, probably, that so important a fact, if once established and extensively known, should ever have been lost to Europe. And of the few who have been disposed to examine the claims of the Northmen to so remarkable a discovery, still fewer have possessed the facilities, till the publication of the work before us, requisite for investigating the subject for themselves. Several eminent scholars, whose advantages for examining the question rendered them competent to decide, have, however, admitted that the Scandinavian Northmen were the true original discoverers of the New World. Of these we need only mention Reinhold Forster, in his "History of the Voyages and Discoveries made in the North," our accomplished countryman Henry Wheaton, in his "History of the Northmen," Malte-Brun in his "Histoire de la Géographie," and Alexander von Humboldt, in the "Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent," &c. The last mentioned eminent author remarks, that the information which the public, at the time he was writing, possessed of that remarkable epoch in the middle ages was extremely scanty, and he expressed a wish that the Northern literati would collect and publish all the accounts relating to that subject.

"The Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries," say they, in the advertisement to the work, "consider it a matter of duty to comply with this wish, embracing a threefold purpose: that of illustrating ancient geography and history; that of perpetuating the memory of our forefathers, and lastly that of everlastingly securing to them that honorable station in the history of the World, of Science, of Navigation, and of Commerce, to which they are justly entitled. This has appeared to the Society to be so much the more necessary, since the latest researches have rendered it in a high degree probable, that the knowledge of the previous Scandinavian discovery of America, preserved in Iceland, and communicated to Columbus when he visited that island in 1477, operated as one, and doubtless as one of the most powerful of the causes which inspired the mind of that great man (whose glory cannot in any degree be impaired by the prior achievement) with that admirable zeal, which bidding defiance to every difficulty, enabled him to effect the new discovery of the New World under circumstances that necessarily led to its immediate, uninterrupted, and constantly increasing colonization and occupation by the energetic and intelligent race of Europe. For this his memory will be imper

ishable among the nations of the earth. Yet still we Northmen ought not to forget his meritorious predecessors, our own forefathers, who in their way had difficulties to contend with not less formidable, since without knowledge of the properties of the magnet, without aid of compass, charts, or mathematical science properly so called, they dared to navigate the great Ocean, and thus by degrees discovered and partly colonized Iceland in the ninth century, Greenland in the tenth, and subsequently several of the Islands and Coasts of America during the latter part of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century.

"It is the last of these epochs, very remarkable in the history of the world, yet not sufficiently known-that forms the subject of the work now announced. No separate work has hitherto been devoted to this subject, if we except the Vinlandia of Torfæus, published in 1705, and now extremely scarce. That work however does not contain any collection of the original statements on which the investigation must be based, and such accounts as it does communicate are but few and incomplete. This collection therefore now makes its appearance for the first time as complete as possible, compiled from the numerous and valuable MSS now extant, and accompanied by a Danish and also a complete Latin translation; and by prefatory remarks, archæological and geographical disquisitions, and other critical apparatus also in Latin. Of its contents we can here merely give a brief sketch, mentioning only the principal sections. Among these may be named, first the historical' accounts of Erik the Red, and the Greenlanders, extracted-and now for the first time accurately published-from the celebrated Codex Flateyensis, particularly concerning BIARNE HERIULFSON'S and LEIF ERICSON'S first discovery of the American Islands and Coasts, and the several voyages thither, performed by Leif's brothers and sister. Next the Saga of Thorfinn Thordson surnamed Karlsefne, decended from Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish ancestors, chiefly taken from two ancient MSS never before edited, and in fact not previously known to the Literati, the one of which is supppsed to be partly a genuine autograph of the celebrated Hauk Erlendson, Lawman of Iceland, well known as a compiler of one of the Recensions of the Landnama-book. This very remarkable Saga contains detailed accounts of Thorfinn Karlsefne's and his company's three years voyages and residence in America, whereby an entirely new light is diffused over this subject hitherto so little known. The only knowledge that Torfæus had of this Saga, which he imagined to be lost, was derived from some corrupted extracts

of it contained in the collection of materials for the history of ancient Greenland left by the Iceland Farmer Biörn Johnson of Skardso. It is now for the first time submitted to the literary world in a complete form. The work here announced moreover contains every thing else that the Society has been able to collect and discover relating to the knowledge of the New World which our forefathers obtained from the early discoveries and researches of the Northmen. Among these we may mention, 1. Adam of Bremen's accounts of Vineland (in America) written in the eleventh century, being in fact communicated to him by the Danish King Sweyn Estrithson, and compiled from authentic accounts furnished to him by Danes, and now for the first time published from the excellent Codex in the Imperial Library at Vienna, of which a facsimile has been transmitted to the Society by the Chief of the Library, Count Dietrichstein. 2. Are Frode's account of Vineland, written in the same or in the following century; and also, 3, of the eminent Icelandic chief Are Marson, one of his own ancestors, who in the year 983 was driven to a part of America situate near Vineland, then called HVITRAMANNALAND OR GREAT IRELAND, whose inhabitants (of Irish origin) prevented him from returning, but at the same time treated him with great respect. 4. Other ancient accounts respecting the Icelandic hero Biörn Asbrandson, in his day one of the Iomsburg Warriors under Palnatoke, and fighting with them in the battle of Fyrisval in Sweden: he also in the year 999 repaired to one of the coasts of America, where he was detained in the same manner, but resided there as chief over the natives for about thirty years. 5. Account of an Icelandic mariner, GuDLEIF GUDLAUGSON, who was driven to the same coast in the year 1027, and who was rescued from death or captivity by his above mentioned countryman. 6. Extracts from the Annals of Iceland of the middle ages, in so far as they relate to America, particularly Bishop Eric's voyage to Vineland in 1121; the discovery of new countries by the Icelanders in the Western Ocean in 1285; an expedition from Norway and Iceland in the year 1288-90; and also a trading voyage from the ancient colony in Greenland to Markland in America in 1347, as recorded by cotemporaries. 7. Ancient account of the most northern district of Greenland and America, chiefly visited by the Northmen for the purpose of hunting and fishing; among these a very remarkable account (from a letter of a Greenland clergyman) of a Voyage of discovery undertaken by some clergymen from the Bishopric of Gardar in Greenland, in the year 1266, being-as is corroborated by an astronomical obser

vation-through Lancaster Sound and Barrow's Straight to regions which in our days have for the first time been made correctly known through the zealous exertions of Sir William Parry, Sir John Ross, and Capt. James Clark Ross, and other British navigators. 9. Extract from the ancient geographical works of the Icelanders, to which is added an outline taken in the thirteenth century representing the earth in four inhabited quarters. 9. An ancient Faroish Qväji wherein Vineland is named, and allusion is made to its connexion with Ireland.

"To which are added, I. A description accompanied by delineations and occasionally by perspective views of several Monuments, chiefly Inscriptions, from the middle ages, found partly in Greenland and partly in the States of Massachusetts and Rhode-Island in North America, on the one hand confirming the accounts of the Sagas, and on the other illustrated by them. II. Detailed Geographical Inquiries lately undertaken at the instance of the Society, whereby the sites of the regions and places named in the Saga are explored, and are pointed out under the names by which they are now commonly known, viz: Newfoundland, Bay of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, and especially the States of Massachusetts and Rhode-Island, and even districts more to the south, probably situate in Virginia, North Carolina, and in Florida, which is supposed to be the most Southerly land mentioned in the most authentic Saga accounts, although sundry of the Northern Geographers of the middle ages would seem to intimate their knowledge of the easterly direction taken by the continent of South America.They are chiefly based on the accounts in the ancient MSS, and on the explanations of the astronomical, nautical and geographical statements contained in the same, which besides receive the most complete confirmation from accounts transmitted by distinguished American scholars, with whom the Society have entered into correspondence, and who, after several journeys undertaken for that object in Massachusetts and RhodeIsland, have communicated accurate illustrations respecting the nature of the countries, their climate, animals, productions, etc., and have furnished the society with descriptions and also with delineations of the ancient monuments found there."

The foregoing is a brief synoposis of the papers contained in the work. Satisfactory information of the genuineness of the manuscripts will be found by examining the volume. In the remainder of our article we shall present a brief sketch of the historical purport of these documents.

But first we will premise a remark on the suggestion made in the above extract relative to the discovery of Columbus. It

is this: that whether or not Columbus, in his visit to Iceland in 1477, obtained any knowledge of the discoveries of the Northmen in Greenland and "Vineland," and consequently received an additional stimulant to the zeal with which he was pursuing his long cherished project, it is a matter of certainty that the idea of seeking land (or India, as he then supposed it would prove to be) by sailing in a Westerly direction, was original with the great navigator. For in his correspondence with Paulo Toscanelli in 1474, three years previous to his northern voyage, he had expressed his intention of seeking India by a route directly to the West.*

A remark should also be premised respecting the character of the people by whom the discovery is said to have been made. This we will give in the language of Mr. Edward Everett, in a late number of the North American Review."Something of the reluctance to admit this discovery," says. that accomplished writer, "which haunts the popular mind, unquestionably springs from a superficial notion of the improbability that a people, locked up, as we almost think them, within the ice-bergs of the North, should have preceded the Genoese, the Venetians, the Spaniards and the Portuguese, in crossing the Atlantic. It happens, however, that at the very period when this discovery is alleged to have been made by the Northmen, and long before, they were of all the tribes of men, precisely the people most likely to make it. Out of a little speck of a barbarous horde, not important enough to be named by Tacitus in his account of the Germans, there had sprung up, in the course of a few centuries, that bold, enterprising warlike race, who, under a strange political organization, in which feudalism, traffic, knight-errantry, and piracy bore equal parts, covered the ocean with their commercial and their naval marine, discovered or colonized, or both, the Archipelago of the North, Iceland and Greenland, the Orkneys, the Shetland Islands, Ireland, and the main of England, all littoral Germany, the Low Countries, and the Northern coast of France; ravaged the coasts of Spain and France on the Mediterranean; sacked the cities of Tuscany; wrested Apulia from the Greek emperors; made successful war with the Pope and the Emperor; established one dynasty in Muscovy; drove the Saracens out of Sicily, and established another dynasty there; defeated in Epirus, the last powerful armies, which were raised by the degenerate Empire of the East; overran Greece, and carried terror to the walls of Constantinople. Naval skill, experience,

*

* Irving's Columbus, Vol. II, No. xiv, Appendix, ed. Philadelphia, 1835.