initial commit of ebook 35763HEADmain

10 files changed, 3677 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/35763-8.txt b/35763-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a10fa7b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1203 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of America by the Northmen,
+985-1015, by Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015
+
+Author: Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2011 [EBook #35763]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 985-1015 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.
+
+  985-1015.
+
+
+
+
+  THE
+
+  DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
+
+  BY THE
+
+  NORTHMEN.
+
+  985-1015.
+
+
+  A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW
+  HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
+  APRIL 24, 1888.
+
+  BY THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER, D. D.,
+
+  A CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE
+  ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN, ETC., ETC.
+
+  CONCORD, N. H.:
+
+  PRIVATELY PRINTED.
+
+  1891.
+
+  REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL
+  SOCIETY.
+
+
+
+
+DISCOURSE.
+
+
+On the 29th day of October, 1887, a statue erected to the memory of
+Leif, the son of Erik, the discoverer of America, was unveiled in the
+city of Boston, in the presence of a large assembly of citizens. The
+statue is of bronze, a little larger than life-size, and represents the
+explorer standing upon the prow of his ship, shading his eyes with his
+hand, and gazing towards the west. This monument[1] suggests the subject
+to which I wish to call your attention, viz., the story of the discovery
+of this continent by the Scandinavians nearly nine hundred years ago.
+
+I must here ask your indulgence for the statement of a few preliminary
+historical facts in order that we may have a clear understanding of this
+discovery.
+
+About the middle of the ninth century, Harald Haarfager, or the
+fair-haired, came to the throne of Norway. He was a young and handsome
+prince, endowed with great energy of will and many personal attractions.
+It is related that he fell in love with a beautiful princess. His
+addresses were, however, coolly rejected with the declaration that when
+he became king of Norway in reality, and not merely in name, she would
+give him both her heart and her hand. This admonition was not
+disregarded by the young king. The thirty-one principalities into which
+Norway was at that time divided were in a few years subjugated, and the
+petty chieftains or princes who ruled over them became obedient to the
+royal authority. The despotic rule, however, of the king was so
+irritating and oppressive that many of them sought homes of greater
+freedom in the inhospitable islands of the northern seas. Among the
+rest, Iceland, having been discovered a short time before, was colonized
+by them. This event occurred about the year 874. Notwithstanding the
+severity of the climate and the sterility of the soil, the colony
+rapidly increased in numbers and wealth, and an active commerce sprung
+up with the mother country, and was successfully maintained. At the end
+of a century, they had pushed their explorations still farther, and
+Greenland was discovered, and a colony was planted there, which
+continued to flourish for a long period.
+
+About the year 985, a young, enterprising, and prosperous navigator, who
+had been accustomed to carry on a trade between Iceland and Norway, on
+returning from the latter in the summer of the year, found that his
+father had left Iceland some time before his arrival, to join a new
+colony which had been then recently planted in Greenland. This young
+merchant, who bore the name of Bjarni, disappointed at not finding his
+father in Iceland, determined to proceed on and pass the coming winter
+with him at the new colony in Greenland. Having obtained what
+information he could as to the geographical position of Greenland, this
+intrepid navigator accordingly set sail in his little barque, with a
+small number of men, in an unknown and untried sea, guided in his course
+only by the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies.[2] After sailing three
+days they entirely lost sight of land. A north wind sprung up,
+accompanied with a dense fog, which utterly shrouded the heavens from
+their view, and left them at the mercy of the winds and the waves. Thus
+helpless, they were borne along for many days in an open and trackless
+ocean, they knew not whither. At length the fog cleared away, the blue
+sky appeared, and soon after they came in sight of land. On approaching
+near to it, they observed that it had a low, undulating surface, was
+without mountains, and was thickly covered with wood. It was obviously
+not the Greenland for which they were searching. Bearing away and
+leaving the land on the west, after sailing two days, they again came in
+sight of land. This was likewise flat and well wooded, but could not be
+Greenland, as that had been described to them as having very high
+snow-capped hills. Turning their prow from the land and launching out
+into the open sea, after a sail of three days, they came in sight of
+another country having a flat, rocky foreground, and mountains beyond
+with ice-clad summits. This was unlike Greenland as it had been
+described to them. They did not even lower their sails. They, however,
+subsequently found it to be an island. Continuing on their course, after
+sailing four days they came to Greenland, where Bjarni found his father,
+with whom he made his permanent abode.
+
+This accidental discovery of lands hitherto unknown, and farther west
+than Greenland, and differing in important features from any countries
+with which they were familiar, awakened a very deep interest wherever
+the story was rehearsed. Bjarni was criticised, and blamed for not
+having made a thorough exploration and for bringing back such a meagre
+account of what he had seen. But while these discoveries were the
+frequent subject of conversation, both in Norway and in the colonies of
+Iceland and Greenland, it was not until fifteen years had elapsed that
+any serious attempt was made to verify the statement of Bjarni, or to
+secure any advantages from what he had discovered.
+
+About the year 1000, Leif, the son of Erik, an early colonist of
+Greenland, determined to conduct an expedition in search of the new
+lands which had been seen on the accidental voyage of Bjarni. He
+accordingly fitted out a ship, and manned it with thirty-five men.
+Shaping their course by the direction and advice of Bjarni, their first
+discovery was the country which Bjarni had seen last. On going ashore
+they saw no grass, but what appeared to be a plain of flat stones
+stretching back to icy mountains in the distance. They named it
+flat-stone land, or Helluland.
+
+Again proceeding on their voyage, they came to another land which was
+flat, covered with wood, with low, white, sandy shores, answering to the
+second country seen by Bjarni. Having landed and made a personal
+inspection, they named the place woodland, or Markland.
+
+Sailing once more into the open sea with a north-east wind, at the end
+of two days they came to a third country, answering to that which Bjarni
+had first seen. They landed upon an island situated at the mouth of a
+river. They left their ship in a sound between the island and the river.
+The water was shallow, and the receding tide soon left their ship on the
+beach. As soon, however, as their ship was lifted by the rising tide,
+they floated it into the river, and from thence into a lake, or an
+expansion of the river above its mouth. Here they landed and constructed
+temporary dwellings, but having decided to pass the winter, they
+proceeded to erect buildings for their more ample accommodation. They
+found abundance of fish in the waters, the climate mild, and the nature
+of the country such that they thought cattle would not even require
+feeding or shelter in winter. They observed that day and night were more
+equal than in Greenland or Iceland. The sun was above the horizon on
+the shortest day, if we may accept the interpretation of learned
+Icelandic scholars[3], from half past seven in the morning till half
+past four in the afternoon. Having completed their house-building, they
+devoted the rest of the season to a careful and systematic exploration
+of the country about them, not venturing, however, so far that they
+could not return to their homes in the evening.
+
+In this general survey they discovered grapes growing in great
+abundance, and timber of an excellent quality and highly valued in the
+almost woodless region from whence they came. With these two commodities
+they loaded their ship, and in the spring returned to Greenland. Leif
+gave to the country, which he had thus discovered and explored, a name,
+as he said, after its "qualities," and called it Vineland.
+
+The next voyage was made by Thorvald, a brother of Leif, probably in the
+year 1002. The same ship was employed, and was manned with thirty men.
+They repaired at once to the booths or temporary houses constructed by
+Leif, where they passed three winters, subsisting chiefly upon fish,
+which they took in the waters near them. In the summers they explored
+the country in various directions to a considerable distance. They
+discovered no indications of human occupation except on an island, where
+they found a corn-shed constructed of wood. The second year they
+discovered native inhabitants in great numbers, armed with missiles, and
+having a vast flotilla of boats made of the skins of animals. With these
+natives they came into hostile conflict, in which Thorvald received a
+wound of which he subsequently died. He was buried at a spot selected by
+himself, and crosses were set up at his head and at his feet. After
+another winter, having loaded their ship with grapes and vines, the
+explorers returned to Greenland.
+
+The death of Thorvald was a source of deep sorrow to his family, and his
+brother Thorstein resolved to visit Vineland and bring home his body. He
+accordingly embarked in the same ship, with twenty-five chosen men, and
+his wife Gudrid. The voyage proved unsuccessful. Having spent the whole
+summer in a vain attempt to find Vineland, they returned to Greenland,
+and during the winter Thorstein died, and the next year his widow Gudrid
+was married to Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic merchant.
+
+In the year 1007, three ships sailed for Vineland, one commanded by
+Thorfinn Karlsefni, one by Bjarni Grimolfson, and the third by Thorvard,
+the husband of Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, the son of Erik. There
+were altogether in the three ships, one hundred and sixty men, and
+cattle of various kinds taken with them perhaps for food, or possibly to
+be useful in case they should decide to make a permanent settlement.
+They attempted, however, nothing beyond a careful exploration of the
+country, which they found beautiful and productive, its forests
+abounding in wild game, its rivers well stocked with fish, and the soil
+producing a spontaneous growth of native grains. They bartered trifles
+with the natives for their furs, but they were able to hold little
+intercourse with them. The natives were so exceedingly hostile that the
+lives of the explorers were in constant peril, and they consequently,
+after some bloody skirmishes, abandoned all expectation of making a
+permanent settlement. At the end of three years, Karlsefni and his
+voyagers returned to Greenland.
+
+In the year 1011 Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, inspired by the hope
+of a profitable voyage, entered into a partnership with two merchants,
+and passed a winter in Vineland. She was a bold, masculine woman, of
+unscrupulous character, and destitute of every womanly quality. She
+fomented discord, contrived the assassination of her partners in the
+voyage, and early the next spring, having loaded all the ships with
+timber and other commodities, she returned with rich and valuable
+cargoes for the Greenland market.
+
+Such is the story of the discovery of America in the last years of the
+tenth and the early years of the eleventh centuries.
+
+These four expeditions of which I have given a very brief outline,
+passing over many interesting but unimportant details, constitute all of
+which there remains any distinct and well defined narrative. Other
+voyages may have been made during the same or a later period. Allusions
+are found in early Scandinavian writings, which may confirm the
+narratives which we have given, but add to them nothing really essential
+or important.
+
+The natural and pertinent question which the historical student has a
+right to ask is this: On what evidence does this story rest? What reason
+have we to believe that these voyages were ever made?
+
+I will endeavor to make the answer to these inquiries as plain and clear
+as possible.
+
+There are two kinds of evidence by which remote historical events may be
+established, viz., ancient writings, which can be relied upon as
+containing truthful statements of the alleged events, and, secondly,
+historical monuments and remains illustrating and confirming the written
+narratives. Such events may be established by one of these classes of
+evidence alone, or by both in concurrence.
+
+Our attention shall be directed in the first place to certain ancient
+writings in which the story of this discovery of America is found. What
+are these ancient writings? and to what extent do they challenge our
+belief?
+
+At the time that the alleged voyages to this continent in the year 1000,
+and a few years subsequent, were made, the old Danish or Icelandic
+tongue, then spoken in Iceland and Greenland, the vernacular of the
+explorers, had not been reduced to a written language, and of course the
+narrative of these voyages could not at that time be written out. But
+there was in that language an oral literature of a peculiar and
+interesting character. It had its poetry, its romance, its personal
+memoirs, and its history. It was nevertheless unwritten. It was carried
+in the memory, and handed down from one generation to another. In
+distinguished and opulent families men were employed to memorize and
+rehearse on festivals and other great occasions, as a part of the
+entertainment, the narratives, which had been skilfully put together and
+polished for public recital, relating to the exploits and achievements
+of their ancestors. These narratives were called sagas, and those who
+memorized and repeated them were called sagamen. It was a hundred and
+fifty years after the alleged discovery of this continent before the
+practice began of committing Icelandic sagas to writing. Suitable
+parchment was difficult to obtain, and the process was slow and
+expensive, and only a few documents of any kind at first were put into
+written form. But in the thirteenth century written sagas multiplied to
+vast numbers. They were deposited in convents and in other places of
+safety. Between 1650 and 1715, these old Icelandic parchments were
+transferred to the libraries of Stockholm and Copenhagen. They were
+subsequently carefully read, and classified by the most competent and
+erudite scholars. Among them two sagas were found relating to
+discoveries far to the southwest of Greenland, the outlines of which I
+have given you in the preceding pages. The earliest of these two sagas
+is supposed to have been written by Hauk Erlendsson, who died in 1334.
+Whether he copied it from a previous manuscript, or took the narrative
+from oral tradition, cannot be determined. The other was written out in
+its present form somewhere between 1387 and 1395. It was probably copied
+from a previous saga not known to be now in existence, but which is
+conjectured to have been originally written out in the twelfth century.
+These documents are pronounced by scholars qualified to judge of the
+character of ancient writings to be authentic, and were undoubtedly
+believed by the writers to be narratives of historical truth.
+
+They describe with great distinctness the outlines of our eastern coast,
+including soil, products, and climate, beginning in the cold, sterile
+regions of the north and extending down to the warm and fruitful shores
+of the south. It is to be observed that there is no improbability that
+these alleged voyages should have been made. That a vessel, sailing from
+Iceland and bound for Greenland, should be blown from its course and
+drifted to the coast of Nova Scotia or of New England, is an occurrence
+that might well be expected; and to believe that such an accidental
+voyage should be followed by other voyages of discovery, demands no
+extraordinary credulity.
+
+The sagas, or narratives, in which the alleged voyages are described,
+were written out as we have them to-day, more than a hundred years
+before the discoveries of Columbus were made in the West Indies,[4] or
+those of John Cabot on our northern Atlantic shores. The writers of
+these sagas had no information derived from other sources on which to
+build up the fabric of their story. To believe that the agreement of the
+narratives in their general outlines with the facts as we now know them
+was accidental, a mere matter of chance, is impossible. The coincidences
+are so many, and the events so far removed from anything that the
+authors had themselves ever seen, or of which they had any knowledge,
+that it becomes easier and more reasonable to accept the narratives in
+their general features than to deny the authenticity of the records. If
+we reject them, we must on the same principle reject the early history
+of all the civilized peoples of the earth, since that history has been
+obtained in all cases more or less directly from oral tradition.
+
+In their general scope, therefore, the narrative of the sagas has been
+accepted by the most judicious and dispassionate historical students,
+who have given to the subject careful and conscientious study.
+
+But when we descend to minor particulars, unimportant to the general
+drift and import of the narratives, we find it difficult, nay, I may say
+impossible, to accept them fully and with an unhesitating confidence.
+Narratives that have come down to us on the current of oral tradition
+are sure to be warped and twisted from their original form and meaning.
+Consciously or unconsciously they are shaped and colored more or less by
+the several minds through which they have passed. No one can fail to
+have witnessed the changes that have grown up in the same story, as
+repeated by one and another in numerous instances within his own
+observation. The careful historian exercises, therefore, great caution
+in receiving what comes to him merely in oral tradition.[5]
+
+We must not, however, forget that the sagamen in whose memories alone
+these narratives were preserved at least a hundred and fifty years, and
+not unlikely for more than three hundred, were professional narrators of
+events. It was their office and duty to transmit to others what they had
+themselves received. Their professional character was in some degree a
+guarantee for the preservation of the truth. But nevertheless it was
+impossible through a long series of oral narrations, that errors should
+not creep in; that the memory of some of them should not fail at times;
+and if it did fail there was no authority or standard by which their
+errors could be corrected. Moreover it is probable that variations were
+purposely introduced here and there, in obedience to the sagaman's
+conceptions of an improved style and a better taste. What variations
+took place through the failure of the memory or the conceit of the
+sagamen, whether few or many, whether trivial or important, can never be
+determined. It is therefore obvious that our interpretation of minor
+particulars in the sagas cannot be critical, and any nicely exact
+meaning, any absolute certainty, cannot be successfully maintained,
+since an inevitable doubt, never to be removed, overshadows these minor
+particulars. We may state, therefore, without hesitation, that the
+narratives of the sagas are to be accepted only in their general
+outlines and prominent features. So far we find solid ground. If we
+advance farther we tread upon quicksands, and are not sure of our
+foothold.
+
+The question here naturally arises, viz., If in minor particulars the
+sagas cannot be fully relied upon, to what extent can we identify the
+countries discovered, and the places visited by the Northmen?
+
+In answer to this very proper inquiry, I observe that, according to the
+narrative of the sagas, and the interpretation of Scandinavian scholars,
+the first country that the explorers discovered after leaving Greenland
+answers in its general features to Newfoundland, with its sterile soil,
+its rocky surface, and its mountains in the back-ground. The second
+answers to Nova Scotia, with its heavy forests, its low, level coast,
+and its white, sandy cliffs and beaches. The third answers to New
+England in temperature, climate, productions of the soil, the flat,
+undulating surface of the country, and its apparent distance from
+Greenland, the base or starting-point from which these voyages of
+discovery were made.
+
+The statements of the sagas coincide with so many of the general
+features of our Atlantic coast that there is a strong probability, not
+indeed rising to a demonstration, but to as much certainty as belongs to
+anything in the period of unwritten history, that the Vineland of the
+Northmen was somewhere on our American Atlantic coast. Of this there is
+little room for doubt. But when we go beyond this there is absolutely
+no certainty whatever. The local descriptions of the sagas are all
+general and indefinite. They identify nothing. When they speak of an
+island, a cape, a river, or a bay, they do not give us any clue to the
+locality where the said island, or cape, or river, or bay is situated.
+The whole coast of New England and of the English Provinces farther east
+is serrated with capes and bays and river-inlets, and is likewise
+studded with some hundreds of islands. It would be exceedingly
+interesting, indeed a great achievement, if we could clearly fix or
+identify the land-fall of Leif, the Scandinavian explorer, and point out
+the exact spot where he erected his houses and passed the winter.
+
+The key to this identification, if any exists, is plainly the
+description of the place as given in the sagas. If we find in the sagas
+the land-fall of Leif, the place where the Scandinavians landed, so
+fully described that it can be clearly distinguished from every other
+place on our coast, we shall then have accomplished this important
+historical achievement. Let us examine this description as it stands in
+these ancient documents.
+
+Leaving Markland, they were, says the saga, "two days at sea before they
+saw land, and they sailed thither and came to an island which lay to the
+eastward of the land." Here they landed and made observations as to the
+grass and the sweetness of the dew. "After that," continues the saga,
+"they went to the ship, and sailed into a sound, which lay between the
+island and a ness (promontory), which ran out to the eastward of the
+land; and then steered westwards past the ness. It was very shallow at
+ebb tide, and their ship stood up, so that it was far to see from the
+ship to the water.
+
+"But so much did they desire to land, that they did not give themselves
+time to wait until the water again rose under their ship, but ran at
+once on shore, at a place where a river flows out of a lake; but so
+soon as the waters rose up under the ship, then took they boats, and
+rowed to the ship, and floated it up to the river, and thence into the
+lake, and there cast anchor, and brought up from the ship their skin
+cots, and made there booths. After this they took council, and formed
+the resolution of remaining there for the winter, and built there large
+houses."
+
+In this brief extract are all the data which we have relating to the
+land-fall of Leif, and to the place where he erected his houses, which
+were occupied by himself, and by other explorers in subsequent years.
+
+We shall observe that we have in this description an _island_ at the
+mouth of a river. Whether the island was large or small, whether it was
+round, square, cuneiform, broad, narrow, high or low, we are not told.
+It was simply an island, and of it we have no further description or
+knowledge whatever.
+
+Their ship was anchored in what they call a _sound_, between the island
+and a promontory or tongue of land which ran out to the eastward. The
+breadth or extent of the sound at high water, or at low water, is not
+given. It may have been broad, covering a vast expanse, or it may have
+been very small, embraced within a few square rods. It was simply a
+sound, a shallow piece of water, where their ship was stranded at low
+tide. Of its character we know nothing more whatever.
+
+Then we have a _river_. Whether it was a large river or a small one,
+long or short, wide or narrow, deep or shallow, a fresh water or tidal
+stream, we are not informed. All we know of the river is that their ship
+could be floated up its current at least at high tide.
+
+The river flowed out of a _lake_. No further description of the lake is
+given. It may have been a large body of water, or it may have been a
+very small one. It may have been only an enlargement or expansion of the
+river, or it may have been a bay receiving its waters from the ocean,
+rising and falling with the tides, and the river only the channel of
+its incoming and receding waters.
+
+On the borders of this lake, or bay, or enlargement of the river, as the
+case may have been, they built their _houses_; whether on the right or
+left shore, whether near the outlet, or miles away, we know not.
+
+It is easy to see how difficult, how impossible, it is to identify the
+landing-place and temporary abode of the Northmen on our coast from this
+loose and indefinite description of the sagas.
+
+In the nearly nine hundred years which have passed since the discovery
+of this continent by these northern explorers, it would be unreasonable
+not to suppose that very great changes have taken place at the mouth of
+the rivers and tidal bays along our Atlantic coast. There is probably
+not a river's mouth or a tidal inlet on our whole eastern frontier,
+which has not been transformed in many and important features during
+this long lapse of time. Islands have been formed, and islands have
+ceased to exist. Sands have been drifting, shores have been crumbling,
+new inlets have been formed, and old ones have been closed up. Nothing
+is more unfixed and changeable than the shores of estuaries, and of
+rivers where they flow into the ocean.
+
+But even if we suppose that no changes have taken place in this long
+lapse of time, there are, doubtless, between Long Island Sound and the
+eastern limit of Nova Scotia, a great number of rivers with all the
+characteristics of that described by the sagas. Precisely the same
+characteristics belong to the Taunton, the Charles, the Merrimack, the
+Piscataqua, the Kennebec, the Penobscot, the Saint Croix, and the St.
+John. All these rivers have one or more islands at their mouth, and
+there are abundant places near by where a ship might be stranded at low
+tide, and in each of these rivers there are expansions or bays from
+which they flow into the ocean.[6] And there are, probably, twenty other
+less important rivers on our coast, where the same conditions may
+likewise be found. What sagacious student of history, what experienced
+navigator, or what learned geographer has the audacity to say that he is
+able to tell us near which of these rivers the Northmen constructed
+their habitations, and made their temporary abode! The identification is
+plainly impossible. Nothing is more certain than the uncertainty that
+enters into all the local descriptions contained in the Icelandic sagas.
+In the numerous explorations of those early navigators, there is not a
+bay, a cape, a promontory, or a river, so clearly described, or so
+distinctly defined, that it can be identified with any bay, cape,
+promontory, or river on our coast. The verdict of history on this point
+is plain, and must stand. Imagination and fancy have their appropriate
+sphere, but their domain is fiction, and not fact; romance, and not
+history; and it is the duty of the historical student to hold them
+within the limits of their proper field.
+
+But there is yet another question which demands an answer. Did the
+Northmen leave on this continent any monuments or works which may serve
+as memorials of their abode here in the early part of the eleventh
+century?
+
+The sources of evidence on this point must be looked for in the sagas,
+or in remains which can be clearly traced to the Northmen as their
+undoubted authors.
+
+In the sagas, we are compelled to say, as much as we could desire it
+otherwise, that we have looked in vain for any such testimony. They
+contain no evidence, not an intimation, that the Northmen constructed
+any mason work, or even laid one stone upon another for any purpose
+whatever. Their dwellings, such as they were, were hastily thrown
+together, to serve only for a brief occupation. The rest of their time,
+according to the general tenor of the narrative, was exclusively
+devoted to exploration, and to the preparation and laying in of a cargo
+for their return voyage. This possible source of evidence yields
+therefore no testimony that the Scandinavians left any structures which
+have survived down to the present time, and can therefore be regarded as
+memorials of their abode in this country.
+
+But, if there is no evidence on this point in the sagas, are there to be
+found to-day on any part of our Atlantic coast remains which can be
+plainly traced to the work of the Northmen?
+
+This question, we regret to say, after thorough examination and study,
+the most competent, careful, and learned antiquaries have been obliged
+to answer in the negative. Credulity has seized upon several
+comparatively antique works, whose origin half a century ago was not
+clearly understood, and has blindly referred them to the Northmen.
+Foremost among them were, first, the stone structure of arched
+mason-work in Newport, Rhode Island; second, a famous rock, bearing
+inscriptions, lying in the tide-water near the town of Dighton, in
+Massachusetts; and, third, the "skeleton in armor" found at Fall River,
+in the same state. No others have been put forward on any evidence that
+challenges a critical examination.
+
+The old mill at Newport, situated on the farm of Benedict Arnold, an
+early governor of Rhode Island, was called in his will "my stone built
+wind mill," and had there been in his mind any mystery about its origin,
+he could hardly have failed to indicate it as a part of his description.
+Roger Williams, the pioneer settler of Rhode Island, educated at the
+University of Cambridge, England, a voluminous author, was himself an
+antiquary, and deeply interested in everything that pertained to our
+aboriginal history. Had any building of arched mason-work, with some
+pretensions to architecture, existed at the time when he first took up
+his abode in Rhode Island, and before any English settlements had been
+made there, he could not have failed to mention it: a phenomenon so
+singular, unexpected, and mysterious must have attracted his attention.
+His silence on the subject renders it morally certain that no such
+structure could have been there at that time.[7]
+
+The inscriptions on the Dighton rock present rude cuttings, intermingled
+with outline figures of men and animals. The whole, or any part of them,
+baffles and defies all skill in interpretation. Different scholars have
+thought they discerned in the shapeless traceries Phoenician, Hebrew,
+Scythian, and Runic characters or letters. Doubtless some similitude to
+them may here and there be seen. They are probably accidental
+resemblances. But no rational interpretation has ever been given, and it
+seems now to be generally conceded by those best qualified to judge,
+that they are the work of our native Indians, of very trivial import,
+if, indeed, they had any meaning whatever.
+
+The "skeleton in armor," found at Fall River, has no better claim than
+the rest to a Scandinavian origin. What appeared to be human bones were
+found in a sand-bank, encased in metallic bands of brass. Its
+antecedents are wholly unknown. It may possibly have been the relics of
+some early navigator, cast upon our shore, who was either killed by the
+natives or died a natural death, and was buried in the armor in which he
+was clad. Or, what is far more probable, it may have been the remains of
+one of our early Indians, overlaid even in his grave, according to their
+custom, with the ornaments of brass, which he had moulded and shaped
+with his own hands while living.[8]
+
+Could the veil be lifted, some such stories as these would doubtless
+spring up from the lifeless bones. But oblivion has for many generations
+brooded over these voiceless remains. Their story belongs to the domain
+of fancy and imagination. Poetry has woven it into an enchanting ballad.
+Its rhythm and its polished numbers may always please the ear and
+gratify the taste. But history, the stern and uncompromising arbiter of
+past events, will, we may be sure, never own the creations of the poet
+or the dreams of the enthusiast to be her legitimate offspring.
+
+Half a century has now elapsed since the sagas have been accessible to
+the English reader in his own language. No labor has been spared by the
+most careful, painstaking, and conscientious historians in seeking for
+remains which can be reasonably identified as the work of the Northmen.
+None whatever have been found, and we may safely predict that none will
+be discovered, that can bear any better test of their genuineness than
+those to which we have just alluded.[9]
+
+It is the office and duty of the historian to seek out facts, to
+distinguish the true from the false, to sift the wheat from the chaff,
+to preserve the one and to relegate the other to the oblivion to which
+it belongs.
+
+Tested by the canons that the most judicious scholars have adopted in
+the investigation of all early history, we cannot doubt that the
+Northmen made four or five voyages to the coast of America in the last
+part of the tenth and the first part of the eleventh centuries; that
+they returned to Greenland with cargoes of grapes and timber, the latter
+a very valuable commodity in the markets both of Greenland and Iceland;
+that their abode on our shores was temporary; that they were mostly
+occupied in explorations, and made no preparations for establishing any
+permanent colony; except their temporary dwellings they erected no
+structures whatever, either of wood or of stone. We have intimations
+that other voyages were made to this continent, but no detailed account
+of them has survived to the present time.
+
+These few facts constitute the substance of what we know of these
+Scandinavian discoveries. Of the details we know little: they are
+involved in indefiniteness, uncertainty, and doubt. The place of their
+first landing, the location of their dwellings, the parts of the country
+which they explored, are so indefinitely described that they are utterly
+beyond the power of identification.
+
+But I should do injustice to the subject to which I have ventured to
+call your attention, if I did not add that writers are not wanting who
+claim to know vastly more of the details than I can see my way clear to
+admit. They belong to that select class of historians who are
+distinguished for an exuberance of imagination and a redundancy of
+faith. It is a very easy and simple thing for them to point out the
+land-fall of Leif, the river which he entered, the island at its mouth,
+the bay where they cast anchor, the shore where they built their
+temporary houses, the spot where Thorvald was buried, and where they set
+up crosses at his head and at his feet. They tell us what headlands were
+explored on the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and what inlets
+and bays were entered along the shores of Maine. The narratives which
+they weave from a fertile brain are ingenious and entertaining: they
+give to the sagas more freshness and greater personality, but when we
+look for the facts on which their allegations rest, for anything that
+may be called evidence, we find only the creations of an undisciplined
+imagination and an agile fancy.
+
+It is, indeed, true that it would be highly gratifying to believe that
+the Northmen made more permanent settlements on our shores, that they
+reared spacious buildings and strong fortresses of stone and mason-work,
+that they gathered about them more of the accessories of a national, or
+even of a colonial existence; but history does not offer us any choice:
+we must take what she gives us, and under the limitations which she
+imposes. The truth, unadorned and without exaggeration, has a beauty
+and a nobility of its own. It needs no additions to commend it to the
+historical student. If he be a true and conscientious investigator, he
+will take it just as he finds it: he will add nothing to it: he will
+take nothing from it.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] If it be admitted, as it is almost universally, that the
+Scandinavians came to this continent in the last part of the tenth or
+the early part of the eleventh century, it is eminently fitting that a
+suitable monument should mark and emphasize the event. And it seems
+equally fitting that it should be placed in Boston, the metropolis of
+New England, since it simply commemorates the event of their coming, but
+is not intended to indicate their land-fall, or the place of their
+temporary abode.
+
+[2] The mariner's compass was not discovered till the twelfth or
+thirteenth century.
+
+[3] This statement rests on the interpretation of Professor Finn
+Magnusen, for which see "The Voyages of the Northmen to America," Prince
+Socely's ed., pp. 34, 126. Boston, 1877. The general description of the
+climate and the products of the soil are in harmony with this
+interpretation, but it has nevertheless been questioned. Other Icelandic
+writers differ from him, and make the latitude of the land-fall of Leif
+at 49° 55', instead of 41° 43' 10", as computed by Magnusen.
+
+This later interpretation is by Professor Gustav Storm. Vide _The
+Finding of Wineland the Good_, by Arthur Middleton Reeves, pp. 181-185.
+London, 1890. These interpretations are wide apart. Both writers are
+represented to be able and thorough scholars. When doctors disagree, who
+shall decide? The sciolists will doubtless range themselves on different
+sides, and fight it out to the bitter end.
+
+The truth is, the chronology of that period in its major and minor
+applications was exceedingly indefinite. The year when events occurred
+is settled, when settled at all, with great difficulty; and it is plain
+that the divisions of the day were loose and indefinite. At least, they
+could only be approximately determined. In the absence of clocks,
+watches, and chronometers, there could not be anything like scientific
+accuracy, and the attempt to apply scientific principles to Scandinavian
+chronology only renders confusion still more confused. The terms which
+they used to express the divisions of the day were all indefinite. One
+of them, for example, was _hirdis rismál_, which means the time when the
+herdsmen took their breakfast. This was sufficiently definite for the
+practical purposes of a simple, primitive people; but as the breakfast
+hour of a people is always more or less various, _hirdis rismál_
+probably covered a period from one to three hours, and therefore did not
+furnish the proper data for calculating latitude. Any meaning given by
+translators touching exact hours of the day must, therefore, be taken
+_cum grano salis_, or for only what it is worth.
+
+[4] It has been conjectured by some writers that Columbus on a visit to
+Iceland learned something of the voyages of the Northmen to America, and
+was aided by this knowledge in his subsequent discoveries. There is no
+evidence whatever that such was the case. In writing a memoir of his
+father, Ferdinando Columbus found among his papers a memorandum in which
+Columbus states that, in February, 1477, he sailed a hundred leagues
+beyond Tile, that this island was as large as England, that the English
+from Bristol carried on a trade there, that the sea when he was there
+was not frozen over; and he speaks also of the high tides. In the same
+paragraph we are informed that the southern limit of this island is 63°
+from the equator, which identifies it with Iceland. Beyond these facts,
+the memorandum contains no information. There is no evidence that
+Columbus was at any time in communication with the natives of Iceland on
+any subject whatever. There is no probability that he sought, or
+obtained, any information of the voyages of the Northmen to this
+continent. Ferdinando Columbus's Life of his father may be found in
+Spanish in Barcia's Historical Collections, Vol. I. Madrid, 1749. It is
+a translation from the Italian, printed in Venice in 1571. An English
+translation appears in Churchill's Collections, in Kerr's, and in
+Pinkerton's, but its mistranslations and errors render it wholly
+untrustworthy.
+
+[5] It is somewhat remarkable that most writers who have attempted to
+estimate the value of the sagas as historical evidence have ignored the
+fact, that from a hundred and fifty to three hundred years they existed
+only in oral tradition, handed down from one generation to another,
+subject to the changes which are inevitable in oral statements. They are
+treated by these critics as they would treat scientific documents, a
+coast or geodetic survey, or an admiralty report, in which lines and
+distances are determined by the most accurate instruments, and
+measurements and records are made simultaneously. It is obvious that
+their premises must be defective, and consequently their deductions are
+sure to be erroneous.
+
+[6] If the reader will examine our coast-survey maps, he will easily
+verify this statement.
+
+[7] Although most antiquaries and historical students have abandoned all
+belief in the Scandinavian origin of this structure, yet in the March
+number of Scribner's Magazine, 1879, an article may be found in defence
+of the theory that it was erected in the eleventh century by the
+Northmen. The argument is founded on its architectural construction, but
+it is clearly refuted by Mr. George C. Mason, Jr., in the Magazine of
+American History, Vol. III, p. 541.
+
+[8] In Professor Putnam's Report, as Curator of the Peabody Museum of
+American Archćology and Ethnology, in 1887, will be found the following
+interesting account of the "Skeleton in Armor:"
+
+     "I must, however, mention as of particular interest relating to the
+     early period of contact between the Indians and Europeans on this
+     continent, the presentation, by Dr. Samuel Kneeland, of two of the
+     brass tubes found with the skeleton of an Indian near Fall River,
+     about which so much has been written, including the well known
+     verses by Longfellow, entitled 'The Skeleton in Armor.' That two of
+     the 'links of the armor' should find their final resting place in
+     this Museum is interesting in itself, and calls up in imagination
+     the history of the bits of metal of which they are made. Probably
+     some early emigrant brought from Europe a brass kettle, which by
+     barter, or through the vicissitudes of those early days, came into
+     the possession of an Indian of one of the New England tribes and
+     was by him cut up for ornaments, arrow points, and knives. One kind
+     of ornament he made by rolling little strips of the brass into the
+     form of long, slender cylinders, in imitation of those he had,
+     probably, before made of copper. These were fastened side by side
+     so as to form an ornamental belt, in which he was buried. Long
+     afterwards, his skeleton was discovered and the brass beads were
+     taken to be portions of the armor of a Norseman. They were sent,
+     with other things found with them, to Copenhagen, and the learned
+     men of the old and new world wrote and sung their supposed history.
+     Chemists made analyses and the truth came out; they were brass, not
+     bronze nor iron. After nearly half a century had elapsed these two
+     little tubes were separated from their fellows, and again crossed
+     the Atlantic to rest by the side of similar tubes of brass and of
+     copper, which have been found with other Indian braves; and their
+     story shows how much can be made out of a little thing when fancy
+     has full play, and imagination is not controlled by scientific
+     reasoning, and conclusions are drawn without comparative study."
+     Vide _Twentieth Annual Report of the Peabody Museum_, Vol. III, p.
+     543.
+
+In an article on "Agricultural Implements of the New England Indians,"
+Professor Henry W. Haynes, of Boston, shows that the Dutch were not
+allowed to barter with the Pequots, because they sold them "kettles" and
+the like with which they made arrow-heads. Vide _Proceedings of the
+Boston Society of Natural History_, Vol. XXII, p. 439. In later times
+brass was in frequent, not to say common, use among the Indians.
+
+[9] There are in many parts of New England old walls and such like
+structures, apparently of very little importance when they were
+originally built, never made the subject of record, disused now for many
+generations, and consequently their origin and purpose have passed
+entirely from the memory of man. Such remains are not uncommon: they may
+be found all along our coast. But there are few writers bold enough to
+assert that they are the work of the Northmen simply because their
+history is not known, and especially since it is very clear that the
+Northmen erected no stone structures whatever. Those who accept such
+palpable absurdities would doubtless easily believe that the "Tenterden
+steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands."
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
+
+Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the
+original.
+
+Punctuation has been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of America by the
+Northmen, 985-1015, by Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 985-1015 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 35763-8.txt or 35763-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/7/6/35763/
+
+Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/35763-8.zip b/35763-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af791fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763-8.zip
diff --git a/35763-h.zip b/35763-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1821636
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763-h.zip
diff --git a/35763-h/35763-h.htm b/35763-h/35763-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a04eae5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763-h/35763-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,1255 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ -->
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015, by Edmund F. Slafter.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+body {margin-left: 10%;margin-right: 10%;}
+
+p {margin-top: .75em;text-align: justify;margin-bottom: .75em;}
+
+hr {width: 33%;margin-top: 2em;margin-bottom: 2em;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;clear: both;}
+
+.pagenum {position: absolute;left: 92%;font-size: smaller;text-align: right;}
+
+
+.huge {font-size: 150%}
+.big {font-size: 125%}
+.blockquot {margin-left: 5%;margin-right: 10%;}
+
+.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+.center   {text-align: center;}
+
+.footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+
+.footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;text-decoration:none;}
+
+.fnanchor {vertical-align: super;font-size: .8em;text-decoration:none;}
+
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of America by the Northmen,
+985-1015, by Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015
+
+Author: Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2011 [EBook #35763]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 985-1015 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center"><span class="huge">NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="huge">985-1015.</span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center">THE<br/></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">DISCOVERY OF AMERICA</span><br/></p>
+
+<p class="center">BY THE<br/></p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="huge">NORTHMEN.</span><br/></p>
+
+<p class="center">985-1015.<br/></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW<br />
+HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY,<br />
+APRIL 24, 1888.<br /></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="big">BY THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER, D. D.,</span><br/>
+A CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE<br/>
+ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN, ETC., ETC.<br /></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/n_page_03.png" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">CONCORD, N. H.:<br /></p>
+<p class="center">PRIVATELY PRINTED.<br /></p>
+<p class="center">1891.<br /></p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY.<br /></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="big">DISCOURSE.</span></p>
+
+
+<p>On the 29th day of October, 1887, a statue erected to the memory of
+Leif, the son of Erik, the discoverer of America, was unveiled in the
+city of Boston, in the presence of a large assembly of citizens. The
+statue is of bronze, a little larger than life-size, and represents the
+explorer standing upon the prow of his ship, shading his eyes with his
+hand, and gazing towards the west. This monument<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> suggests the subject
+to which I wish to call your attention, viz., the story of the discovery
+of this continent by the Scandinavians nearly nine hundred years ago.</p>
+
+<p>I must here ask your indulgence for the statement of a few preliminary
+historical facts in order that we may have a clear understanding of this
+discovery.</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the ninth century, Harald Haarfager, or the
+fair-haired, came to the throne of Norway. He was a young and handsome
+prince, endowed with great energy of will and many personal attractions.
+It is related that he fell in love with a beautiful princess. His
+addresses were, however, coolly rejected with the declaration that when
+he became king of Norway in reality, and not merely in name, she would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>
+give him both her heart and her hand. This admonition was not
+disregarded by the young king. The thirty-one principalities into which
+Norway was at that time divided were in a few years subjugated, and the
+petty chieftains or princes who ruled over them became obedient to the
+royal authority. The despotic rule, however, of the king was so
+irritating and oppressive that many of them sought homes of greater
+freedom in the inhospitable islands of the northern seas. Among the
+rest, Iceland, having been discovered a short time before, was colonized
+by them. This event occurred about the year 874. Notwithstanding the
+severity of the climate and the sterility of the soil, the colony
+rapidly increased in numbers and wealth, and an active commerce sprung
+up with the mother country, and was successfully maintained. At the end
+of a century, they had pushed their explorations still farther, and
+Greenland was discovered, and a colony was planted there, which
+continued to flourish for a long period.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 985, a young, enterprising, and prosperous navigator, who
+had been accustomed to carry on a trade between Iceland and Norway, on
+returning from the latter in the summer of the year, found that his
+father had left Iceland some time before his arrival, to join a new
+colony which had been then recently planted in Greenland. This young
+merchant, who bore the name of Bjarni, disappointed at not finding his
+father in Iceland, determined to proceed on and pass the coming winter
+with him at the new colony in Greenland. Having obtained what
+information he could as to the geographical position of Greenland, this
+intrepid navigator accordingly set sail in his little barque, with a
+small number of men, in an unknown and untried sea, guided in his course
+only by the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> After sailing three
+days they entirely lost sight of land. A north wind sprung<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> up,
+accompanied with a dense fog, which utterly shrouded the heavens from
+their view, and left them at the mercy of the winds and the waves. Thus
+helpless, they were borne along for many days in an open and trackless
+ocean, they knew not whither. At length the fog cleared away, the blue
+sky appeared, and soon after they came in sight of land. On approaching
+near to it, they observed that it had a low, undulating surface, was
+without mountains, and was thickly covered with wood. It was obviously
+not the Greenland for which they were searching. Bearing away and
+leaving the land on the west, after sailing two days, they again came in
+sight of land. This was likewise flat and well wooded, but could not be
+Greenland, as that had been described to them as having very high
+snow-capped hills. Turning their prow from the land and launching out
+into the open sea, after a sail of three days, they came in sight of
+another country having a flat, rocky foreground, and mountains beyond
+with ice-clad summits. This was unlike Greenland as it had been
+described to them. They did not even lower their sails. They, however,
+subsequently found it to be an island. Continuing on their course, after
+sailing four days they came to Greenland, where Bjarni found his father,
+with whom he made his permanent abode.</p>
+
+<p>This accidental discovery of lands hitherto unknown, and farther west
+than Greenland, and differing in important features from any countries
+with which they were familiar, awakened a very deep interest wherever
+the story was rehearsed. Bjarni was criticised, and blamed for not
+having made a thorough exploration and for bringing back such a meagre
+account of what he had seen. But while these discoveries were the
+frequent subject of conversation, both in Norway and in the colonies of
+Iceland and Greenland, it was not until fifteen years had elapsed that
+any serious attempt was made to verify the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> statement of Bjarni, or to
+secure any advantages from what he had discovered.</p>
+
+<p>About the year 1000, Leif, the son of Erik, an early colonist of
+Greenland, determined to conduct an expedition in search of the new
+lands which had been seen on the accidental voyage of Bjarni. He
+accordingly fitted out a ship, and manned it with thirty-five men.
+Shaping their course by the direction and advice of Bjarni, their first
+discovery was the country which Bjarni had seen last. On going ashore
+they saw no grass, but what appeared to be a plain of flat stones
+stretching back to icy mountains in the distance. They named it
+flat-stone land, or Helluland.</p>
+
+<p>Again proceeding on their voyage, they came to another land which was
+flat, covered with wood, with low, white, sandy shores, answering to the
+second country seen by Bjarni. Having landed and made a personal
+inspection, they named the place woodland, or Markland.</p>
+
+<p>Sailing once more into the open sea with a north-east wind, at the end
+of two days they came to a third country, answering to that which Bjarni
+had first seen. They landed upon an island situated at the mouth of a
+river. They left their ship in a sound between the island and the river.
+The water was shallow, and the receding tide soon left their ship on the
+beach. As soon, however, as their ship was lifted by the rising tide,
+they floated it into the river, and from thence into a lake, or an
+expansion of the river above its mouth. Here they landed and constructed
+temporary dwellings, but having decided to pass the winter, they
+proceeded to erect buildings for their more ample accommodation. They
+found abundance of fish in the waters, the climate mild, and the nature
+of the country such that they thought cattle would not even require
+feeding or shelter in winter. They observed that day and night were more
+equal than in Greenland or Iceland. The sun was above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> the horizon on
+the shortest day, if we may accept the interpretation of learned
+Icelandic scholars<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>, from half past seven in the morning till half
+past four in the afternoon. Having completed their house-building, they
+devoted the rest of the season to a careful and systematic exploration
+of the country about them, not venturing, however, so far that they
+could not return to their homes in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>In this general survey they discovered grapes growing in great
+abundance, and timber of an excellent quality and highly valued in the
+almost woodless region from whence they came. With these two commodities
+they loaded their ship, and in the spring returned to Greenland. Leif
+gave to the country, which he had thus discovered and explored, a name,
+as he said, after its "qualities," and called it Vineland.</p>
+
+<p>The next voyage was made by Thorvald, a brother of Leif, probably in the
+year 1002. The same ship was employed, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> was manned with thirty men.
+They repaired at once to the booths or temporary houses constructed by
+Leif, where they passed three winters, subsisting chiefly upon fish,
+which they took in the waters near them. In the summers they explored
+the country in various directions to a considerable distance. They
+discovered no indications of human occupation except on an island, where
+they found a corn-shed constructed of wood. The second year they
+discovered native inhabitants in great numbers, armed with missiles, and
+having a vast flotilla of boats made of the skins of animals. With these
+natives they came into hostile conflict, in which Thorvald received a
+wound of which he subsequently died. He was buried at a spot selected by
+himself, and crosses were set up at his head and at his feet. After
+another winter, having loaded their ship with grapes and vines, the
+explorers returned to Greenland.</p>
+
+<p>The death of Thorvald was a source of deep sorrow to his family, and his
+brother Thorstein resolved to visit Vineland and bring home his body. He
+accordingly embarked in the same ship, with twenty-five chosen men, and
+his wife Gudrid. The voyage proved unsuccessful. Having spent the whole
+summer in a vain attempt to find Vineland, they returned to Greenland,
+and during the winter Thorstein died, and the next year his widow Gudrid
+was married to Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic merchant.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1007, three ships sailed for Vineland, one commanded by
+Thorfinn Karlsefni, one by Bjarni Grimolfson, and the third by Thorvard,
+the husband of Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, the son of Erik. There
+were altogether in the three ships, one hundred and sixty men, and
+cattle of various kinds taken with them perhaps for food, or possibly to
+be useful in case they should decide to make a permanent settlement.
+They attempted, however, nothing beyond a careful exploration of the
+country, which they found beautiful and productive, its forests<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>
+abounding in wild game, its rivers well stocked with fish, and the soil
+producing a spontaneous growth of native grains. They bartered trifles
+with the natives for their furs, but they were able to hold little
+intercourse with them. The natives were so exceedingly hostile that the
+lives of the explorers were in constant peril, and they consequently,
+after some bloody skirmishes, abandoned all expectation of making a
+permanent settlement. At the end of three years, Karlsefni and his
+voyagers returned to Greenland.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1011 Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, inspired by the hope
+of a profitable voyage, entered into a partnership with two merchants,
+and passed a winter in Vineland. She was a bold, masculine woman, of
+unscrupulous character, and destitute of every womanly quality. She
+fomented discord, contrived the assassination of her partners in the
+voyage, and early the next spring, having loaded all the ships with
+timber and other commodities, she returned with rich and valuable
+cargoes for the Greenland market.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the story of the discovery of America in the last years of the
+tenth and the early years of the eleventh centuries.</p>
+
+<p>These four expeditions of which I have given a very brief outline,
+passing over many interesting but unimportant details, constitute all of
+which there remains any distinct and well defined narrative. Other
+voyages may have been made during the same or a later period. Allusions
+are found in early Scandinavian writings, which may confirm the
+narratives which we have given, but add to them nothing really essential
+or important.</p>
+
+<p>The natural and pertinent question which the historical student has a
+right to ask is this: On what evidence does this story rest? What reason
+have we to believe that these voyages were ever made?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>I will endeavor to make the answer to these inquiries as plain and clear
+as possible.</p>
+
+<p>There are two kinds of evidence by which remote historical events may be
+established, viz., ancient writings, which can be relied upon as
+containing truthful statements of the alleged events, and, secondly,
+historical monuments and remains illustrating and confirming the written
+narratives. Such events may be established by one of these classes of
+evidence alone, or by both in concurrence.</p>
+
+<p>Our attention shall be directed in the first place to certain ancient
+writings in which the story of this discovery of America is found. What
+are these ancient writings? and to what extent do they challenge our
+belief?</p>
+
+<p>At the time that the alleged voyages to this continent in the year 1000,
+and a few years subsequent, were made, the old Danish or Icelandic
+tongue, then spoken in Iceland and Greenland, the vernacular of the
+explorers, had not been reduced to a written language, and of course the
+narrative of these voyages could not at that time be written out. But
+there was in that language an oral literature of a peculiar and
+interesting character. It had its poetry, its romance, its personal
+memoirs, and its history. It was nevertheless unwritten. It was carried
+in the memory, and handed down from one generation to another. In
+distinguished and opulent families men were employed to memorize and
+rehearse on festivals and other great occasions, as a part of the
+entertainment, the narratives, which had been skilfully put together and
+polished for public recital, relating to the exploits and achievements
+of their ancestors. These narratives were called sagas, and those who
+memorized and repeated them were called sagamen. It was a hundred and
+fifty years after the alleged discovery of this continent before the
+practice began of committing Icelandic sagas to writing. Suitable
+parchment was difficult to obtain, and the process was slow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> and
+expensive, and only a few documents of any kind at first were put into
+written form. But in the thirteenth century written sagas multiplied to
+vast numbers. They were deposited in convents and in other places of
+safety. Between 1650 and 1715, these old Icelandic parchments were
+transferred to the libraries of Stockholm and Copenhagen. They were
+subsequently carefully read, and classified by the most competent and
+erudite scholars. Among them two sagas were found relating to
+discoveries far to the southwest of Greenland, the outlines of which I
+have given you in the preceding pages. The earliest of these two sagas
+is supposed to have been written by Hauk Erlendsson, who died in 1334.
+Whether he copied it from a previous manuscript, or took the narrative
+from oral tradition, cannot be determined. The other was written out in
+its present form somewhere between 1387 and 1395. It was probably copied
+from a previous saga not known to be now in existence, but which is
+conjectured to have been originally written out in the twelfth century.
+These documents are pronounced by scholars qualified to judge of the
+character of ancient writings to be authentic, and were undoubtedly
+believed by the writers to be narratives of historical truth.</p>
+
+<p>They describe with great distinctness the outlines of our eastern coast,
+including soil, products, and climate, beginning in the cold, sterile
+regions of the north and extending down to the warm and fruitful shores
+of the south. It is to be observed that there is no improbability that
+these alleged voyages should have been made. That a vessel, sailing from
+Iceland and bound for Greenland, should be blown from its course and
+drifted to the coast of Nova Scotia or of New England, is an occurrence
+that might well be expected; and to believe that such an accidental
+voyage should be followed by other voyages of discovery, demands no
+extraordinary credulity.</p>
+
+<p>The sagas, or narratives, in which the alleged voyages are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> described,
+were written out as we have them to-day, more than a hundred years
+before the discoveries of Columbus were made in the West Indies,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> or
+those of John Cabot on our northern Atlantic shores. The writers of
+these sagas had no information derived from other sources on which to
+build up the fabric of their story. To believe that the agreement of the
+narratives in their general outlines with the facts as we now know them
+was accidental, a mere matter of chance, is impossible. The coincidences
+are so many, and the events so far removed from anything that the
+authors had themselves ever seen, or of which they had any knowledge,
+that it becomes easier and more reasonable to accept the narratives in
+their general features than to deny the authenticity of the records. If
+we reject them, we must on the same principle reject the early history
+of all the civilized peoples of the earth, since that history has been
+obtained in all cases more or less directly from oral tradition.</p>
+
+<p>In their general scope, therefore, the narrative of the sagas has been
+accepted by the most judicious and dispassionate historical students,
+who have given to the subject careful and conscientious study.</p>
+
+<p>But when we descend to minor particulars, unimportant to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> the general
+drift and import of the narratives, we find it difficult, nay, I may say
+impossible, to accept them fully and with an unhesitating confidence.
+Narratives that have come down to us on the current of oral tradition
+are sure to be warped and twisted from their original form and meaning.
+Consciously or unconsciously they are shaped and colored more or less by
+the several minds through which they have passed. No one can fail to
+have witnessed the changes that have grown up in the same story, as
+repeated by one and another in numerous instances within his own
+observation. The careful historian exercises, therefore, great caution
+in receiving what comes to him merely in oral tradition.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p>We must not, however, forget that the sagamen in whose memories alone
+these narratives were preserved at least a hundred and fifty years, and
+not unlikely for more than three hundred, were professional narrators of
+events. It was their office and duty to transmit to others what they had
+themselves received. Their professional character was in some degree a
+guarantee for the preservation of the truth. But nevertheless it was
+impossible through a long series of oral narrations, that errors should
+not creep in; that the memory of some of them should not fail at times;
+and if it did fail there was no authority or standard by which their
+errors could be corrected. Moreover it is probable that variations were
+purposely introduced here and there, in obedience to the sagaman's
+conceptions of an improved style and a better taste. What variations
+took place through the failure of the memory or the conceit of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
+sagamen, whether few or many, whether trivial or important, can never be
+determined. It is therefore obvious that our interpretation of minor
+particulars in the sagas cannot be critical, and any nicely exact
+meaning, any absolute certainty, cannot be successfully maintained,
+since an inevitable doubt, never to be removed, overshadows these minor
+particulars. We may state, therefore, without hesitation, that the
+narratives of the sagas are to be accepted only in their general
+outlines and prominent features. So far we find solid ground. If we
+advance farther we tread upon quicksands, and are not sure of our
+foothold.</p>
+
+<p>The question here naturally arises, viz., If in minor particulars the
+sagas cannot be fully relied upon, to what extent can we identify the
+countries discovered, and the places visited by the Northmen?</p>
+
+<p>In answer to this very proper inquiry, I observe that, according to the
+narrative of the sagas, and the interpretation of Scandinavian scholars,
+the first country that the explorers discovered after leaving Greenland
+answers in its general features to Newfoundland, with its sterile soil,
+its rocky surface, and its mountains in the back-ground. The second
+answers to Nova Scotia, with its heavy forests, its low, level coast,
+and its white, sandy cliffs and beaches. The third answers to New
+England in temperature, climate, productions of the soil, the flat,
+undulating surface of the country, and its apparent distance from
+Greenland, the base or starting-point from which these voyages of
+discovery were made.</p>
+
+<p>The statements of the sagas coincide with so many of the general
+features of our Atlantic coast that there is a strong probability, not
+indeed rising to a demonstration, but to as much certainty as belongs to
+anything in the period of unwritten history, that the Vineland of the
+Northmen was somewhere on our American Atlantic coast. Of this there is
+little room for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> doubt. But when we go beyond this there is absolutely
+no certainty whatever. The local descriptions of the sagas are all
+general and indefinite. They identify nothing. When they speak of an
+island, a cape, a river, or a bay, they do not give us any clue to the
+locality where the said island, or cape, or river, or bay is situated.
+The whole coast of New England and of the English Provinces farther east
+is serrated with capes and bays and river-inlets, and is likewise
+studded with some hundreds of islands. It would be exceedingly
+interesting, indeed a great achievement, if we could clearly fix or
+identify the land-fall of Leif, the Scandinavian explorer, and point out
+the exact spot where he erected his houses and passed the winter.</p>
+
+<p>The key to this identification, if any exists, is plainly the
+description of the place as given in the sagas. If we find in the sagas
+the land-fall of Leif, the place where the Scandinavians landed, so
+fully described that it can be clearly distinguished from every other
+place on our coast, we shall then have accomplished this important
+historical achievement. Let us examine this description as it stands in
+these ancient documents.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving Markland, they were, says the saga, "two days at sea before they
+saw land, and they sailed thither and came to an island which lay to the
+eastward of the land." Here they landed and made observations as to the
+grass and the sweetness of the dew. "After that," continues the saga,
+"they went to the ship, and sailed into a sound, which lay between the
+island and a ness (promontory), which ran out to the eastward of the
+land; and then steered westwards past the ness. It was very shallow at
+ebb tide, and their ship stood up, so that it was far to see from the
+ship to the water.</p>
+
+<p>"But so much did they desire to land, that they did not give themselves
+time to wait until the water again rose under their ship, but ran at
+once on shore, at a place where a river flows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> out of a lake; but so
+soon as the waters rose up under the ship, then took they boats, and
+rowed to the ship, and floated it up to the river, and thence into the
+lake, and there cast anchor, and brought up from the ship their skin
+cots, and made there booths. After this they took council, and formed
+the resolution of remaining there for the winter, and built there large
+houses."</p>
+
+<p>In this brief extract are all the data which we have relating to the
+land-fall of Leif, and to the place where he erected his houses, which
+were occupied by himself, and by other explorers in subsequent years.</p>
+
+<p>We shall observe that we have in this description an <i>island</i> at the
+mouth of a river. Whether the island was large or small, whether it was
+round, square, cuneiform, broad, narrow, high or low, we are not told.
+It was simply an island, and of it we have no further description or
+knowledge whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Their ship was anchored in what they call a <i>sound</i>, between the island
+and a promontory or tongue of land which ran out to the eastward. The
+breadth or extent of the sound at high water, or at low water, is not
+given. It may have been broad, covering a vast expanse, or it may have
+been very small, embraced within a few square rods. It was simply a
+sound, a shallow piece of water, where their ship was stranded at low
+tide. Of its character we know nothing more whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Then we have a <i>river</i>. Whether it was a large river or a small one,
+long or short, wide or narrow, deep or shallow, a fresh water or tidal
+stream, we are not informed. All we know of the river is that their ship
+could be floated up its current at least at high tide.</p>
+
+<p>The river flowed out of a <i>lake</i>. No further description of the lake is
+given. It may have been a large body of water, or it may have been a
+very small one. It may have been only an enlargement or expansion of the
+river, or it may have been a bay receiving its waters from the ocean,
+rising and falling with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> the tides, and the river only the channel of
+its incoming and receding waters.</p>
+
+<p>On the borders of this lake, or bay, or enlargement of the river, as the
+case may have been, they built their <i>houses</i>; whether on the right or
+left shore, whether near the outlet, or miles away, we know not.</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see how difficult, how impossible, it is to identify the
+landing-place and temporary abode of the Northmen on our coast from this
+loose and indefinite description of the sagas.</p>
+
+<p>In the nearly nine hundred years which have passed since the discovery
+of this continent by these northern explorers, it would be unreasonable
+not to suppose that very great changes have taken place at the mouth of
+the rivers and tidal bays along our Atlantic coast. There is probably
+not a river's mouth or a tidal inlet on our whole eastern frontier,
+which has not been transformed in many and important features during
+this long lapse of time. Islands have been formed, and islands have
+ceased to exist. Sands have been drifting, shores have been crumbling,
+new inlets have been formed, and old ones have been closed up. Nothing
+is more unfixed and changeable than the shores of estuaries, and of
+rivers where they flow into the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>But even if we suppose that no changes have taken place in this long
+lapse of time, there are, doubtless, between Long Island Sound and the
+eastern limit of Nova Scotia, a great number of rivers with all the
+characteristics of that described by the sagas. Precisely the same
+characteristics belong to the Taunton, the Charles, the Merrimack, the
+Piscataqua, the Kennebec, the Penobscot, the Saint Croix, and the St.
+John. All these rivers have one or more islands at their mouth, and
+there are abundant places near by where a ship might be stranded at low
+tide, and in each of these rivers there are expansions or bays<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> from
+which they flow into the ocean.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> And there are, probably, twenty other
+less important rivers on our coast, where the same conditions may
+likewise be found. What sagacious student of history, what experienced
+navigator, or what learned geographer has the audacity to say that he is
+able to tell us near which of these rivers the Northmen constructed
+their habitations, and made their temporary abode! The identification is
+plainly impossible. Nothing is more certain than the uncertainty that
+enters into all the local descriptions contained in the Icelandic sagas.
+In the numerous explorations of those early navigators, there is not a
+bay, a cape, a promontory, or a river, so clearly described, or so
+distinctly defined, that it can be identified with any bay, cape,
+promontory, or river on our coast. The verdict of history on this point
+is plain, and must stand. Imagination and fancy have their appropriate
+sphere, but their domain is fiction, and not fact; romance, and not
+history; and it is the duty of the historical student to hold them
+within the limits of their proper field.</p>
+
+<p>But there is yet another question which demands an answer. Did the
+Northmen leave on this continent any monuments or works which may serve
+as memorials of their abode here in the early part of the eleventh
+century?</p>
+
+<p>The sources of evidence on this point must be looked for in the sagas,
+or in remains which can be clearly traced to the Northmen as their
+undoubted authors.</p>
+
+<p>In the sagas, we are compelled to say, as much as we could desire it
+otherwise, that we have looked in vain for any such testimony. They
+contain no evidence, not an intimation, that the Northmen constructed
+any mason work, or even laid one stone upon another for any purpose
+whatever. Their dwellings, such as they were, were hastily thrown
+together, to serve only for a brief occupation. The rest of their time,
+according<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> to the general tenor of the narrative, was exclusively
+devoted to exploration, and to the preparation and laying in of a cargo
+for their return voyage. This possible source of evidence yields
+therefore no testimony that the Scandinavians left any structures which
+have survived down to the present time, and can therefore be regarded as
+memorials of their abode in this country.</p>
+
+<p>But, if there is no evidence on this point in the sagas, are there to be
+found to-day on any part of our Atlantic coast remains which can be
+plainly traced to the work of the Northmen?</p>
+
+<p>This question, we regret to say, after thorough examination and study,
+the most competent, careful, and learned antiquaries have been obliged
+to answer in the negative. Credulity has seized upon several
+comparatively antique works, whose origin half a century ago was not
+clearly understood, and has blindly referred them to the Northmen.
+Foremost among them were, first, the stone structure of arched
+mason-work in Newport, Rhode Island; second, a famous rock, bearing
+inscriptions, lying in the tide-water near the town of Dighton, in
+Massachusetts; and, third, the "skeleton in armor" found at Fall River,
+in the same state. No others have been put forward on any evidence that
+challenges a critical examination.</p>
+
+<p>The old mill at Newport, situated on the farm of Benedict Arnold, an
+early governor of Rhode Island, was called in his will "my stone built
+wind mill," and had there been in his mind any mystery about its origin,
+he could hardly have failed to indicate it as a part of his description.
+Roger Williams, the pioneer settler of Rhode Island, educated at the
+University of Cambridge, England, a voluminous author, was himself an
+antiquary, and deeply interested in everything that pertained to our
+aboriginal history. Had any building of arched mason-work,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> with some
+pretensions to architecture, existed at the time when he first took up
+his abode in Rhode Island, and before any English settlements had been
+made there, he could not have failed to mention it: a phenomenon so
+singular, unexpected, and mysterious must have attracted his attention.
+His silence on the subject renders it morally certain that no such
+structure could have been there at that time.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>The inscriptions on the Dighton rock present rude cuttings, intermingled
+with outline figures of men and animals. The whole, or any part of them,
+baffles and defies all skill in interpretation. Different scholars have
+thought they discerned in the shapeless traceries Ph[oe]nician, Hebrew,
+Scythian, and Runic characters or letters. Doubtless some similitude to
+them may here and there be seen. They are probably accidental
+resemblances. But no rational interpretation has ever been given, and it
+seems now to be generally conceded by those best qualified to judge,
+that they are the work of our native Indians, of very trivial import,
+if, indeed, they had any meaning whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The "skeleton in armor," found at Fall River, has no better claim than
+the rest to a Scandinavian origin. What appeared to be human bones were
+found in a sand-bank, encased in metallic bands of brass. Its
+antecedents are wholly unknown. It may possibly have been the relics of
+some early navigator, cast upon our shore, who was either killed by the
+natives or died a natural death, and was buried in the armor in which he
+was clad. Or, what is far more probable, it may have been the remains of
+one of our early Indians, overlaid even in his grave, according to their
+custom, with the ornaments of brass, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> he had moulded and shaped
+with his own hands while living.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>Could the veil be lifted, some such stories as these would doubtless
+spring up from the lifeless bones. But oblivion has for many generations
+brooded over these voiceless remains. Their story belongs to the domain
+of fancy and imagination. Poetry has woven it into an enchanting ballad.
+Its rhythm and its polished numbers may always please the ear and
+gratify the taste. But history, the stern and uncompromising arbiter of
+past events, will, we may be sure, never own the creations of the poet
+or the dreams of the enthusiast to be her legitimate offspring.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>Half a century has now elapsed since the sagas have been accessible to
+the English reader in his own language. No labor has been spared by the
+most careful, painstaking, and conscientious historians in seeking for
+remains which can be reasonably identified as the work of the Northmen.
+None whatever have been found, and we may safely predict that none will
+be discovered, that can bear any better test of their genuineness than
+those to which we have just alluded.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>
+
+<p>It is the office and duty of the historian to seek out facts, to
+distinguish the true from the false, to sift the wheat from the chaff,
+to preserve the one and to relegate the other to the oblivion to which
+it belongs.</p>
+
+<p>Tested by the canons that the most judicious scholars have adopted in
+the investigation of all early history, we cannot doubt that the
+Northmen made four or five voyages to the coast of America in the last
+part of the tenth and the first part of the eleventh centuries; that
+they returned to Greenland with cargoes of grapes and timber, the latter
+a very valuable commodity in the markets both of Greenland and Iceland;
+that their abode on our shores was temporary; that they were mostly
+occupied in explorations, and made no preparations for establishing any
+permanent colony; except their temporary dwellings they erected no
+structures whatever, either of wood or of stone. We have intimations
+that other voyages were made to this continent, but no detailed account
+of them has survived to the present time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>These few facts constitute the substance of what we know of these
+Scandinavian discoveries. Of the details we know little: they are
+involved in indefiniteness, uncertainty, and doubt. The place of their
+first landing, the location of their dwellings, the parts of the country
+which they explored, are so indefinitely described that they are utterly
+beyond the power of identification.</p>
+
+<p>But I should do injustice to the subject to which I have ventured to
+call your attention, if I did not add that writers are not wanting who
+claim to know vastly more of the details than I can see my way clear to
+admit. They belong to that select class of historians who are
+distinguished for an exuberance of imagination and a redundancy of
+faith. It is a very easy and simple thing for them to point out the
+land-fall of Leif, the river which he entered, the island at its mouth,
+the bay where they cast anchor, the shore where they built their
+temporary houses, the spot where Thorvald was buried, and where they set
+up crosses at his head and at his feet. They tell us what headlands were
+explored on the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and what inlets
+and bays were entered along the shores of Maine. The narratives which
+they weave from a fertile brain are ingenious and entertaining: they
+give to the sagas more freshness and greater personality, but when we
+look for the facts on which their allegations rest, for anything that
+may be called evidence, we find only the creations of an undisciplined
+imagination and an agile fancy.</p>
+
+<p>It is, indeed, true that it would be highly gratifying to believe that
+the Northmen made more permanent settlements on our shores, that they
+reared spacious buildings and strong fortresses of stone and mason-work,
+that they gathered about them more of the accessories of a national, or
+even of a colonial existence; but history does not offer us any choice:
+we must take what she gives us, and under the limitations which she
+imposes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> The truth, unadorned and without exaggeration, has a beauty
+and a nobility of its own. It needs no additions to commend it to the
+historical student. If he be a true and conscientious investigator, he
+will take it just as he finds it: he will add nothing to it: he will
+take nothing from it.</p>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="big">FOOTNOTES:</span></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> If it be admitted, as it is almost universally, that the
+Scandinavians came to this continent in the last part of the tenth or
+the early part of the eleventh century, it is eminently fitting that a
+suitable monument should mark and emphasize the event. And it seems
+equally fitting that it should be placed in Boston, the metropolis of
+New England, since it simply commemorates the event of their coming, but
+is not intended to indicate their land-fall, or the place of their
+temporary abode.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The mariner's compass was not discovered till the twelfth
+or thirteenth century.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> This statement rests on the interpretation of Professor
+Finn Magnusen, for which see "The Voyages of the Northmen to America,"
+Prince Socely's ed., pp. 34, 126. Boston, 1877. The general description
+of the climate and the products of the soil are in harmony with this
+interpretation, but it has nevertheless been questioned. Other Icelandic
+writers differ from him, and make the latitude of the land-fall of Leif
+at 49° 55', instead of 41° 43' 10", as computed by Magnusen.
+</p><p>
+This later interpretation is by Professor Gustav Storm. Vide <i>The
+Finding of Wineland the Good</i>, by Arthur Middleton Reeves, pp. 181-185.
+London, 1890. These interpretations are wide apart. Both writers are
+represented to be able and thorough scholars. When doctors disagree, who
+shall decide? The sciolists will doubtless range themselves on different
+sides, and fight it out to the bitter end.
+</p><p>
+The truth is, the chronology of that period in its major and minor
+applications was exceedingly indefinite. The year when events occurred
+is settled, when settled at all, with great difficulty; and it is plain
+that the divisions of the day were loose and indefinite. At least, they
+could only be approximately determined. In the absence of clocks,
+watches, and chronometers, there could not be anything like scientific
+accuracy, and the attempt to apply scientific principles to Scandinavian
+chronology only renders confusion still more confused. The terms which
+they used to express the divisions of the day were all indefinite. One
+of them, for example, was <i>hirdis rismál</i>, which means the time when the
+herdsmen took their breakfast. This was sufficiently definite for the
+practical purposes of a simple, primitive people; but as the breakfast
+hour of a people is always more or less various, <i>hirdis rismál</i>
+probably covered a period from one to three hours, and therefore did not
+furnish the proper data for calculating latitude. Any meaning given by
+translators touching exact hours of the day must, therefore, be taken
+<i>cum grano salis</i>, or for only what it is worth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"> <span class="label">[4]</span></a> It has been conjectured by some writers that Columbus on a
+visit to Iceland learned something of the voyages of the Northmen to
+America, and was aided by this knowledge in his subsequent discoveries.
+There is no evidence whatever that such was the case. In writing a
+memoir of his father, Ferdinando Columbus found among his papers a
+memorandum in which Columbus states that, in February, 1477, he sailed a
+hundred leagues beyond Tile, that this island was as large as England,
+that the English from Bristol carried on a trade there, that the sea
+when he was there was not frozen over; and he speaks also of the high
+tides. In the same paragraph we are informed that the southern limit of
+this island is 63° from the equator, which identifies it with Iceland.
+Beyond these facts, the memorandum contains no information. There is no
+evidence that Columbus was at any time in communication with the natives
+of Iceland on any subject whatever. There is no probability that he
+sought, or obtained, any information of the voyages of the Northmen to
+this continent. Ferdinando Columbus's Life of his father may be found in
+Spanish in Barcia's Historical Collections, Vol. I. Madrid, 1749. It is
+a translation from the Italian, printed in Venice in 1571. An English
+translation appears in Churchill's Collections, in Kerr's, and in
+Pinkerton's, but its mistranslations and errors render it wholly
+untrustworthy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> It is somewhat remarkable that most writers who have
+attempted to estimate the value of the sagas as historical evidence have
+ignored the fact, that from a hundred and fifty to three hundred years
+they existed only in oral tradition, handed down from one generation to
+another, subject to the changes which are inevitable in oral statements.
+They are treated by these critics as they would treat scientific
+documents, a coast or geodetic survey, or an admiralty report, in which
+lines and distances are determined by the most accurate instruments, and
+measurements and records are made simultaneously. It is obvious that
+their premises must be defective, and consequently their deductions are
+sure to be erroneous.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> If the reader will examine our coast-survey maps, he will
+easily verify this statement.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Although most antiquaries and historical students have
+abandoned all belief in the Scandinavian origin of this structure, yet
+in the March number of Scribner's Magazine, 1879, an article may be
+found in defence of the theory that it was erected in the eleventh
+century by the Northmen. The argument is founded on its architectural
+construction, but it is clearly refuted by Mr. George C. Mason, Jr., in
+the Magazine of American History, Vol. III, p. 541.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> In Professor Putnam's Report, as Curator of the Peabody
+Museum of American Archćology and Ethnology, in 1887, will be found the
+following interesting account of the "Skeleton in Armor:"
+</p>
+<p class="blockquot">"I must, however, mention as of particular interest relating to the
+early period of contact between the Indians and Europeans on this
+continent, the presentation, by Dr. Samuel Kneeland, of two of the
+brass tubes found with the skeleton of an Indian near Fall River,
+about which so much has been written, including the well known
+verses by Longfellow, entitled 'The Skeleton in Armor.' That two of
+the 'links of the armor' should find their final resting place in
+this Museum is interesting in itself, and calls up in imagination
+the history of the bits of metal of which they are made. Probably
+some early emigrant brought from Europe a brass kettle, which by
+barter, or through the vicissitudes of those early days, came into
+the possession of an Indian of one of the New England tribes and
+was by him cut up for ornaments, arrow points, and knives. One kind
+of ornament he made by rolling little strips of the brass into the
+form of long, slender cylinders, in imitation of those he had,
+probably, before made of copper. These were fastened side by side
+so as to form an ornamental belt, in which he was buried. Long
+afterwards, his skeleton was discovered and the brass beads were
+taken to be portions of the armor of a Norseman. They were sent,
+with other things found with them, to Copenhagen, and the learned
+men of the old and new world wrote and sung their supposed history.
+Chemists made analyses and the truth came out; they were brass, not
+bronze nor iron. After nearly half a century had elapsed these two
+little tubes were separated from their fellows, and again crossed
+the Atlantic to rest by the side of similar tubes of brass and of
+copper, which have been found with other Indian braves; and their
+story shows how much can be made out of a little thing when fancy
+has full play, and imagination is not controlled by scientific
+reasoning, and conclusions are drawn without comparative study."
+Vide <i>Twentieth Annual Report of the Peabody Museum</i>, Vol. III, p.
+543.</p>
+
+<p>In an article on "Agricultural Implements of the New England Indians,"
+Professor Henry W. Haynes, of Boston, shows that the Dutch were not
+allowed to barter with the Pequots, because they sold them "kettles" and
+the like with which they made arrow-heads. Vide <i>Proceedings of the
+Boston Society of Natural History</i>, Vol. XXII, p. 439. In later times
+brass was in frequent, not to say common, use among the Indians.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> There are in many parts of New England old walls and such
+like structures, apparently of very little importance when they were
+originally built, never made the subject of record, disused now for many
+generations, and consequently their origin and purpose have passed
+entirely from the memory of man. Such remains are not uncommon: they may
+be found all along our coast. But there are few writers bold enough to
+assert that they are the work of the Northmen simply because their
+history is not known, and especially since it is very clear that the
+Northmen erected no stone structures whatever. Those who accept such
+palpable absurdities would doubtless easily believe that the "Tenterden
+steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands."</p></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="big">Transcriber's Notes:</span></p>
+
+<p>Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the
+original.</p>
+
+<p>Punctuation has been corrected without note.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of America by the
+Northmen, 985-1015, by Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 985-1015 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 35763-h.htm or 35763-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/7/6/35763/
+
+Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/35763-h/images/n_page_03.png b/35763-h/images/n_page_03.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bcb51bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763-h/images/n_page_03.png
diff --git a/35763.txt b/35763.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cee09aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,1203 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of America by the Northmen,
+985-1015, by Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015
+
+Author: Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2011 [EBook #35763]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 985-1015 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  NORTHMEN IN AMERICA.
+
+  985-1015.
+
+
+
+
+  THE
+
+  DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
+
+  BY THE
+
+  NORTHMEN.
+
+  985-1015.
+
+
+  A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE NEW
+  HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
+  APRIL 24, 1888.
+
+  BY THE REV. EDMUND F. SLAFTER, D. D.,
+
+  A CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE
+  ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN, ETC., ETC.
+
+  CONCORD, N. H.:
+
+  PRIVATELY PRINTED.
+
+  1891.
+
+  REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE HISTORICAL
+  SOCIETY.
+
+
+
+
+DISCOURSE.
+
+
+On the 29th day of October, 1887, a statue erected to the memory of
+Leif, the son of Erik, the discoverer of America, was unveiled in the
+city of Boston, in the presence of a large assembly of citizens. The
+statue is of bronze, a little larger than life-size, and represents the
+explorer standing upon the prow of his ship, shading his eyes with his
+hand, and gazing towards the west. This monument[1] suggests the subject
+to which I wish to call your attention, viz., the story of the discovery
+of this continent by the Scandinavians nearly nine hundred years ago.
+
+I must here ask your indulgence for the statement of a few preliminary
+historical facts in order that we may have a clear understanding of this
+discovery.
+
+About the middle of the ninth century, Harald Haarfager, or the
+fair-haired, came to the throne of Norway. He was a young and handsome
+prince, endowed with great energy of will and many personal attractions.
+It is related that he fell in love with a beautiful princess. His
+addresses were, however, coolly rejected with the declaration that when
+he became king of Norway in reality, and not merely in name, she would
+give him both her heart and her hand. This admonition was not
+disregarded by the young king. The thirty-one principalities into which
+Norway was at that time divided were in a few years subjugated, and the
+petty chieftains or princes who ruled over them became obedient to the
+royal authority. The despotic rule, however, of the king was so
+irritating and oppressive that many of them sought homes of greater
+freedom in the inhospitable islands of the northern seas. Among the
+rest, Iceland, having been discovered a short time before, was colonized
+by them. This event occurred about the year 874. Notwithstanding the
+severity of the climate and the sterility of the soil, the colony
+rapidly increased in numbers and wealth, and an active commerce sprung
+up with the mother country, and was successfully maintained. At the end
+of a century, they had pushed their explorations still farther, and
+Greenland was discovered, and a colony was planted there, which
+continued to flourish for a long period.
+
+About the year 985, a young, enterprising, and prosperous navigator, who
+had been accustomed to carry on a trade between Iceland and Norway, on
+returning from the latter in the summer of the year, found that his
+father had left Iceland some time before his arrival, to join a new
+colony which had been then recently planted in Greenland. This young
+merchant, who bore the name of Bjarni, disappointed at not finding his
+father in Iceland, determined to proceed on and pass the coming winter
+with him at the new colony in Greenland. Having obtained what
+information he could as to the geographical position of Greenland, this
+intrepid navigator accordingly set sail in his little barque, with a
+small number of men, in an unknown and untried sea, guided in his course
+only by the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies.[2] After sailing three
+days they entirely lost sight of land. A north wind sprung up,
+accompanied with a dense fog, which utterly shrouded the heavens from
+their view, and left them at the mercy of the winds and the waves. Thus
+helpless, they were borne along for many days in an open and trackless
+ocean, they knew not whither. At length the fog cleared away, the blue
+sky appeared, and soon after they came in sight of land. On approaching
+near to it, they observed that it had a low, undulating surface, was
+without mountains, and was thickly covered with wood. It was obviously
+not the Greenland for which they were searching. Bearing away and
+leaving the land on the west, after sailing two days, they again came in
+sight of land. This was likewise flat and well wooded, but could not be
+Greenland, as that had been described to them as having very high
+snow-capped hills. Turning their prow from the land and launching out
+into the open sea, after a sail of three days, they came in sight of
+another country having a flat, rocky foreground, and mountains beyond
+with ice-clad summits. This was unlike Greenland as it had been
+described to them. They did not even lower their sails. They, however,
+subsequently found it to be an island. Continuing on their course, after
+sailing four days they came to Greenland, where Bjarni found his father,
+with whom he made his permanent abode.
+
+This accidental discovery of lands hitherto unknown, and farther west
+than Greenland, and differing in important features from any countries
+with which they were familiar, awakened a very deep interest wherever
+the story was rehearsed. Bjarni was criticised, and blamed for not
+having made a thorough exploration and for bringing back such a meagre
+account of what he had seen. But while these discoveries were the
+frequent subject of conversation, both in Norway and in the colonies of
+Iceland and Greenland, it was not until fifteen years had elapsed that
+any serious attempt was made to verify the statement of Bjarni, or to
+secure any advantages from what he had discovered.
+
+About the year 1000, Leif, the son of Erik, an early colonist of
+Greenland, determined to conduct an expedition in search of the new
+lands which had been seen on the accidental voyage of Bjarni. He
+accordingly fitted out a ship, and manned it with thirty-five men.
+Shaping their course by the direction and advice of Bjarni, their first
+discovery was the country which Bjarni had seen last. On going ashore
+they saw no grass, but what appeared to be a plain of flat stones
+stretching back to icy mountains in the distance. They named it
+flat-stone land, or Helluland.
+
+Again proceeding on their voyage, they came to another land which was
+flat, covered with wood, with low, white, sandy shores, answering to the
+second country seen by Bjarni. Having landed and made a personal
+inspection, they named the place woodland, or Markland.
+
+Sailing once more into the open sea with a north-east wind, at the end
+of two days they came to a third country, answering to that which Bjarni
+had first seen. They landed upon an island situated at the mouth of a
+river. They left their ship in a sound between the island and the river.
+The water was shallow, and the receding tide soon left their ship on the
+beach. As soon, however, as their ship was lifted by the rising tide,
+they floated it into the river, and from thence into a lake, or an
+expansion of the river above its mouth. Here they landed and constructed
+temporary dwellings, but having decided to pass the winter, they
+proceeded to erect buildings for their more ample accommodation. They
+found abundance of fish in the waters, the climate mild, and the nature
+of the country such that they thought cattle would not even require
+feeding or shelter in winter. They observed that day and night were more
+equal than in Greenland or Iceland. The sun was above the horizon on
+the shortest day, if we may accept the interpretation of learned
+Icelandic scholars[3], from half past seven in the morning till half
+past four in the afternoon. Having completed their house-building, they
+devoted the rest of the season to a careful and systematic exploration
+of the country about them, not venturing, however, so far that they
+could not return to their homes in the evening.
+
+In this general survey they discovered grapes growing in great
+abundance, and timber of an excellent quality and highly valued in the
+almost woodless region from whence they came. With these two commodities
+they loaded their ship, and in the spring returned to Greenland. Leif
+gave to the country, which he had thus discovered and explored, a name,
+as he said, after its "qualities," and called it Vineland.
+
+The next voyage was made by Thorvald, a brother of Leif, probably in the
+year 1002. The same ship was employed, and was manned with thirty men.
+They repaired at once to the booths or temporary houses constructed by
+Leif, where they passed three winters, subsisting chiefly upon fish,
+which they took in the waters near them. In the summers they explored
+the country in various directions to a considerable distance. They
+discovered no indications of human occupation except on an island, where
+they found a corn-shed constructed of wood. The second year they
+discovered native inhabitants in great numbers, armed with missiles, and
+having a vast flotilla of boats made of the skins of animals. With these
+natives they came into hostile conflict, in which Thorvald received a
+wound of which he subsequently died. He was buried at a spot selected by
+himself, and crosses were set up at his head and at his feet. After
+another winter, having loaded their ship with grapes and vines, the
+explorers returned to Greenland.
+
+The death of Thorvald was a source of deep sorrow to his family, and his
+brother Thorstein resolved to visit Vineland and bring home his body. He
+accordingly embarked in the same ship, with twenty-five chosen men, and
+his wife Gudrid. The voyage proved unsuccessful. Having spent the whole
+summer in a vain attempt to find Vineland, they returned to Greenland,
+and during the winter Thorstein died, and the next year his widow Gudrid
+was married to Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic merchant.
+
+In the year 1007, three ships sailed for Vineland, one commanded by
+Thorfinn Karlsefni, one by Bjarni Grimolfson, and the third by Thorvard,
+the husband of Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, the son of Erik. There
+were altogether in the three ships, one hundred and sixty men, and
+cattle of various kinds taken with them perhaps for food, or possibly to
+be useful in case they should decide to make a permanent settlement.
+They attempted, however, nothing beyond a careful exploration of the
+country, which they found beautiful and productive, its forests
+abounding in wild game, its rivers well stocked with fish, and the soil
+producing a spontaneous growth of native grains. They bartered trifles
+with the natives for their furs, but they were able to hold little
+intercourse with them. The natives were so exceedingly hostile that the
+lives of the explorers were in constant peril, and they consequently,
+after some bloody skirmishes, abandoned all expectation of making a
+permanent settlement. At the end of three years, Karlsefni and his
+voyagers returned to Greenland.
+
+In the year 1011 Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, inspired by the hope
+of a profitable voyage, entered into a partnership with two merchants,
+and passed a winter in Vineland. She was a bold, masculine woman, of
+unscrupulous character, and destitute of every womanly quality. She
+fomented discord, contrived the assassination of her partners in the
+voyage, and early the next spring, having loaded all the ships with
+timber and other commodities, she returned with rich and valuable
+cargoes for the Greenland market.
+
+Such is the story of the discovery of America in the last years of the
+tenth and the early years of the eleventh centuries.
+
+These four expeditions of which I have given a very brief outline,
+passing over many interesting but unimportant details, constitute all of
+which there remains any distinct and well defined narrative. Other
+voyages may have been made during the same or a later period. Allusions
+are found in early Scandinavian writings, which may confirm the
+narratives which we have given, but add to them nothing really essential
+or important.
+
+The natural and pertinent question which the historical student has a
+right to ask is this: On what evidence does this story rest? What reason
+have we to believe that these voyages were ever made?
+
+I will endeavor to make the answer to these inquiries as plain and clear
+as possible.
+
+There are two kinds of evidence by which remote historical events may be
+established, viz., ancient writings, which can be relied upon as
+containing truthful statements of the alleged events, and, secondly,
+historical monuments and remains illustrating and confirming the written
+narratives. Such events may be established by one of these classes of
+evidence alone, or by both in concurrence.
+
+Our attention shall be directed in the first place to certain ancient
+writings in which the story of this discovery of America is found. What
+are these ancient writings? and to what extent do they challenge our
+belief?
+
+At the time that the alleged voyages to this continent in the year 1000,
+and a few years subsequent, were made, the old Danish or Icelandic
+tongue, then spoken in Iceland and Greenland, the vernacular of the
+explorers, had not been reduced to a written language, and of course the
+narrative of these voyages could not at that time be written out. But
+there was in that language an oral literature of a peculiar and
+interesting character. It had its poetry, its romance, its personal
+memoirs, and its history. It was nevertheless unwritten. It was carried
+in the memory, and handed down from one generation to another. In
+distinguished and opulent families men were employed to memorize and
+rehearse on festivals and other great occasions, as a part of the
+entertainment, the narratives, which had been skilfully put together and
+polished for public recital, relating to the exploits and achievements
+of their ancestors. These narratives were called sagas, and those who
+memorized and repeated them were called sagamen. It was a hundred and
+fifty years after the alleged discovery of this continent before the
+practice began of committing Icelandic sagas to writing. Suitable
+parchment was difficult to obtain, and the process was slow and
+expensive, and only a few documents of any kind at first were put into
+written form. But in the thirteenth century written sagas multiplied to
+vast numbers. They were deposited in convents and in other places of
+safety. Between 1650 and 1715, these old Icelandic parchments were
+transferred to the libraries of Stockholm and Copenhagen. They were
+subsequently carefully read, and classified by the most competent and
+erudite scholars. Among them two sagas were found relating to
+discoveries far to the southwest of Greenland, the outlines of which I
+have given you in the preceding pages. The earliest of these two sagas
+is supposed to have been written by Hauk Erlendsson, who died in 1334.
+Whether he copied it from a previous manuscript, or took the narrative
+from oral tradition, cannot be determined. The other was written out in
+its present form somewhere between 1387 and 1395. It was probably copied
+from a previous saga not known to be now in existence, but which is
+conjectured to have been originally written out in the twelfth century.
+These documents are pronounced by scholars qualified to judge of the
+character of ancient writings to be authentic, and were undoubtedly
+believed by the writers to be narratives of historical truth.
+
+They describe with great distinctness the outlines of our eastern coast,
+including soil, products, and climate, beginning in the cold, sterile
+regions of the north and extending down to the warm and fruitful shores
+of the south. It is to be observed that there is no improbability that
+these alleged voyages should have been made. That a vessel, sailing from
+Iceland and bound for Greenland, should be blown from its course and
+drifted to the coast of Nova Scotia or of New England, is an occurrence
+that might well be expected; and to believe that such an accidental
+voyage should be followed by other voyages of discovery, demands no
+extraordinary credulity.
+
+The sagas, or narratives, in which the alleged voyages are described,
+were written out as we have them to-day, more than a hundred years
+before the discoveries of Columbus were made in the West Indies,[4] or
+those of John Cabot on our northern Atlantic shores. The writers of
+these sagas had no information derived from other sources on which to
+build up the fabric of their story. To believe that the agreement of the
+narratives in their general outlines with the facts as we now know them
+was accidental, a mere matter of chance, is impossible. The coincidences
+are so many, and the events so far removed from anything that the
+authors had themselves ever seen, or of which they had any knowledge,
+that it becomes easier and more reasonable to accept the narratives in
+their general features than to deny the authenticity of the records. If
+we reject them, we must on the same principle reject the early history
+of all the civilized peoples of the earth, since that history has been
+obtained in all cases more or less directly from oral tradition.
+
+In their general scope, therefore, the narrative of the sagas has been
+accepted by the most judicious and dispassionate historical students,
+who have given to the subject careful and conscientious study.
+
+But when we descend to minor particulars, unimportant to the general
+drift and import of the narratives, we find it difficult, nay, I may say
+impossible, to accept them fully and with an unhesitating confidence.
+Narratives that have come down to us on the current of oral tradition
+are sure to be warped and twisted from their original form and meaning.
+Consciously or unconsciously they are shaped and colored more or less by
+the several minds through which they have passed. No one can fail to
+have witnessed the changes that have grown up in the same story, as
+repeated by one and another in numerous instances within his own
+observation. The careful historian exercises, therefore, great caution
+in receiving what comes to him merely in oral tradition.[5]
+
+We must not, however, forget that the sagamen in whose memories alone
+these narratives were preserved at least a hundred and fifty years, and
+not unlikely for more than three hundred, were professional narrators of
+events. It was their office and duty to transmit to others what they had
+themselves received. Their professional character was in some degree a
+guarantee for the preservation of the truth. But nevertheless it was
+impossible through a long series of oral narrations, that errors should
+not creep in; that the memory of some of them should not fail at times;
+and if it did fail there was no authority or standard by which their
+errors could be corrected. Moreover it is probable that variations were
+purposely introduced here and there, in obedience to the sagaman's
+conceptions of an improved style and a better taste. What variations
+took place through the failure of the memory or the conceit of the
+sagamen, whether few or many, whether trivial or important, can never be
+determined. It is therefore obvious that our interpretation of minor
+particulars in the sagas cannot be critical, and any nicely exact
+meaning, any absolute certainty, cannot be successfully maintained,
+since an inevitable doubt, never to be removed, overshadows these minor
+particulars. We may state, therefore, without hesitation, that the
+narratives of the sagas are to be accepted only in their general
+outlines and prominent features. So far we find solid ground. If we
+advance farther we tread upon quicksands, and are not sure of our
+foothold.
+
+The question here naturally arises, viz., If in minor particulars the
+sagas cannot be fully relied upon, to what extent can we identify the
+countries discovered, and the places visited by the Northmen?
+
+In answer to this very proper inquiry, I observe that, according to the
+narrative of the sagas, and the interpretation of Scandinavian scholars,
+the first country that the explorers discovered after leaving Greenland
+answers in its general features to Newfoundland, with its sterile soil,
+its rocky surface, and its mountains in the back-ground. The second
+answers to Nova Scotia, with its heavy forests, its low, level coast,
+and its white, sandy cliffs and beaches. The third answers to New
+England in temperature, climate, productions of the soil, the flat,
+undulating surface of the country, and its apparent distance from
+Greenland, the base or starting-point from which these voyages of
+discovery were made.
+
+The statements of the sagas coincide with so many of the general
+features of our Atlantic coast that there is a strong probability, not
+indeed rising to a demonstration, but to as much certainty as belongs to
+anything in the period of unwritten history, that the Vineland of the
+Northmen was somewhere on our American Atlantic coast. Of this there is
+little room for doubt. But when we go beyond this there is absolutely
+no certainty whatever. The local descriptions of the sagas are all
+general and indefinite. They identify nothing. When they speak of an
+island, a cape, a river, or a bay, they do not give us any clue to the
+locality where the said island, or cape, or river, or bay is situated.
+The whole coast of New England and of the English Provinces farther east
+is serrated with capes and bays and river-inlets, and is likewise
+studded with some hundreds of islands. It would be exceedingly
+interesting, indeed a great achievement, if we could clearly fix or
+identify the land-fall of Leif, the Scandinavian explorer, and point out
+the exact spot where he erected his houses and passed the winter.
+
+The key to this identification, if any exists, is plainly the
+description of the place as given in the sagas. If we find in the sagas
+the land-fall of Leif, the place where the Scandinavians landed, so
+fully described that it can be clearly distinguished from every other
+place on our coast, we shall then have accomplished this important
+historical achievement. Let us examine this description as it stands in
+these ancient documents.
+
+Leaving Markland, they were, says the saga, "two days at sea before they
+saw land, and they sailed thither and came to an island which lay to the
+eastward of the land." Here they landed and made observations as to the
+grass and the sweetness of the dew. "After that," continues the saga,
+"they went to the ship, and sailed into a sound, which lay between the
+island and a ness (promontory), which ran out to the eastward of the
+land; and then steered westwards past the ness. It was very shallow at
+ebb tide, and their ship stood up, so that it was far to see from the
+ship to the water.
+
+"But so much did they desire to land, that they did not give themselves
+time to wait until the water again rose under their ship, but ran at
+once on shore, at a place where a river flows out of a lake; but so
+soon as the waters rose up under the ship, then took they boats, and
+rowed to the ship, and floated it up to the river, and thence into the
+lake, and there cast anchor, and brought up from the ship their skin
+cots, and made there booths. After this they took council, and formed
+the resolution of remaining there for the winter, and built there large
+houses."
+
+In this brief extract are all the data which we have relating to the
+land-fall of Leif, and to the place where he erected his houses, which
+were occupied by himself, and by other explorers in subsequent years.
+
+We shall observe that we have in this description an _island_ at the
+mouth of a river. Whether the island was large or small, whether it was
+round, square, cuneiform, broad, narrow, high or low, we are not told.
+It was simply an island, and of it we have no further description or
+knowledge whatever.
+
+Their ship was anchored in what they call a _sound_, between the island
+and a promontory or tongue of land which ran out to the eastward. The
+breadth or extent of the sound at high water, or at low water, is not
+given. It may have been broad, covering a vast expanse, or it may have
+been very small, embraced within a few square rods. It was simply a
+sound, a shallow piece of water, where their ship was stranded at low
+tide. Of its character we know nothing more whatever.
+
+Then we have a _river_. Whether it was a large river or a small one,
+long or short, wide or narrow, deep or shallow, a fresh water or tidal
+stream, we are not informed. All we know of the river is that their ship
+could be floated up its current at least at high tide.
+
+The river flowed out of a _lake_. No further description of the lake is
+given. It may have been a large body of water, or it may have been a
+very small one. It may have been only an enlargement or expansion of the
+river, or it may have been a bay receiving its waters from the ocean,
+rising and falling with the tides, and the river only the channel of
+its incoming and receding waters.
+
+On the borders of this lake, or bay, or enlargement of the river, as the
+case may have been, they built their _houses_; whether on the right or
+left shore, whether near the outlet, or miles away, we know not.
+
+It is easy to see how difficult, how impossible, it is to identify the
+landing-place and temporary abode of the Northmen on our coast from this
+loose and indefinite description of the sagas.
+
+In the nearly nine hundred years which have passed since the discovery
+of this continent by these northern explorers, it would be unreasonable
+not to suppose that very great changes have taken place at the mouth of
+the rivers and tidal bays along our Atlantic coast. There is probably
+not a river's mouth or a tidal inlet on our whole eastern frontier,
+which has not been transformed in many and important features during
+this long lapse of time. Islands have been formed, and islands have
+ceased to exist. Sands have been drifting, shores have been crumbling,
+new inlets have been formed, and old ones have been closed up. Nothing
+is more unfixed and changeable than the shores of estuaries, and of
+rivers where they flow into the ocean.
+
+But even if we suppose that no changes have taken place in this long
+lapse of time, there are, doubtless, between Long Island Sound and the
+eastern limit of Nova Scotia, a great number of rivers with all the
+characteristics of that described by the sagas. Precisely the same
+characteristics belong to the Taunton, the Charles, the Merrimack, the
+Piscataqua, the Kennebec, the Penobscot, the Saint Croix, and the St.
+John. All these rivers have one or more islands at their mouth, and
+there are abundant places near by where a ship might be stranded at low
+tide, and in each of these rivers there are expansions or bays from
+which they flow into the ocean.[6] And there are, probably, twenty other
+less important rivers on our coast, where the same conditions may
+likewise be found. What sagacious student of history, what experienced
+navigator, or what learned geographer has the audacity to say that he is
+able to tell us near which of these rivers the Northmen constructed
+their habitations, and made their temporary abode! The identification is
+plainly impossible. Nothing is more certain than the uncertainty that
+enters into all the local descriptions contained in the Icelandic sagas.
+In the numerous explorations of those early navigators, there is not a
+bay, a cape, a promontory, or a river, so clearly described, or so
+distinctly defined, that it can be identified with any bay, cape,
+promontory, or river on our coast. The verdict of history on this point
+is plain, and must stand. Imagination and fancy have their appropriate
+sphere, but their domain is fiction, and not fact; romance, and not
+history; and it is the duty of the historical student to hold them
+within the limits of their proper field.
+
+But there is yet another question which demands an answer. Did the
+Northmen leave on this continent any monuments or works which may serve
+as memorials of their abode here in the early part of the eleventh
+century?
+
+The sources of evidence on this point must be looked for in the sagas,
+or in remains which can be clearly traced to the Northmen as their
+undoubted authors.
+
+In the sagas, we are compelled to say, as much as we could desire it
+otherwise, that we have looked in vain for any such testimony. They
+contain no evidence, not an intimation, that the Northmen constructed
+any mason work, or even laid one stone upon another for any purpose
+whatever. Their dwellings, such as they were, were hastily thrown
+together, to serve only for a brief occupation. The rest of their time,
+according to the general tenor of the narrative, was exclusively
+devoted to exploration, and to the preparation and laying in of a cargo
+for their return voyage. This possible source of evidence yields
+therefore no testimony that the Scandinavians left any structures which
+have survived down to the present time, and can therefore be regarded as
+memorials of their abode in this country.
+
+But, if there is no evidence on this point in the sagas, are there to be
+found to-day on any part of our Atlantic coast remains which can be
+plainly traced to the work of the Northmen?
+
+This question, we regret to say, after thorough examination and study,
+the most competent, careful, and learned antiquaries have been obliged
+to answer in the negative. Credulity has seized upon several
+comparatively antique works, whose origin half a century ago was not
+clearly understood, and has blindly referred them to the Northmen.
+Foremost among them were, first, the stone structure of arched
+mason-work in Newport, Rhode Island; second, a famous rock, bearing
+inscriptions, lying in the tide-water near the town of Dighton, in
+Massachusetts; and, third, the "skeleton in armor" found at Fall River,
+in the same state. No others have been put forward on any evidence that
+challenges a critical examination.
+
+The old mill at Newport, situated on the farm of Benedict Arnold, an
+early governor of Rhode Island, was called in his will "my stone built
+wind mill," and had there been in his mind any mystery about its origin,
+he could hardly have failed to indicate it as a part of his description.
+Roger Williams, the pioneer settler of Rhode Island, educated at the
+University of Cambridge, England, a voluminous author, was himself an
+antiquary, and deeply interested in everything that pertained to our
+aboriginal history. Had any building of arched mason-work, with some
+pretensions to architecture, existed at the time when he first took up
+his abode in Rhode Island, and before any English settlements had been
+made there, he could not have failed to mention it: a phenomenon so
+singular, unexpected, and mysterious must have attracted his attention.
+His silence on the subject renders it morally certain that no such
+structure could have been there at that time.[7]
+
+The inscriptions on the Dighton rock present rude cuttings, intermingled
+with outline figures of men and animals. The whole, or any part of them,
+baffles and defies all skill in interpretation. Different scholars have
+thought they discerned in the shapeless traceries Phoenician, Hebrew,
+Scythian, and Runic characters or letters. Doubtless some similitude to
+them may here and there be seen. They are probably accidental
+resemblances. But no rational interpretation has ever been given, and it
+seems now to be generally conceded by those best qualified to judge,
+that they are the work of our native Indians, of very trivial import,
+if, indeed, they had any meaning whatever.
+
+The "skeleton in armor," found at Fall River, has no better claim than
+the rest to a Scandinavian origin. What appeared to be human bones were
+found in a sand-bank, encased in metallic bands of brass. Its
+antecedents are wholly unknown. It may possibly have been the relics of
+some early navigator, cast upon our shore, who was either killed by the
+natives or died a natural death, and was buried in the armor in which he
+was clad. Or, what is far more probable, it may have been the remains of
+one of our early Indians, overlaid even in his grave, according to their
+custom, with the ornaments of brass, which he had moulded and shaped
+with his own hands while living.[8]
+
+Could the veil be lifted, some such stories as these would doubtless
+spring up from the lifeless bones. But oblivion has for many generations
+brooded over these voiceless remains. Their story belongs to the domain
+of fancy and imagination. Poetry has woven it into an enchanting ballad.
+Its rhythm and its polished numbers may always please the ear and
+gratify the taste. But history, the stern and uncompromising arbiter of
+past events, will, we may be sure, never own the creations of the poet
+or the dreams of the enthusiast to be her legitimate offspring.
+
+Half a century has now elapsed since the sagas have been accessible to
+the English reader in his own language. No labor has been spared by the
+most careful, painstaking, and conscientious historians in seeking for
+remains which can be reasonably identified as the work of the Northmen.
+None whatever have been found, and we may safely predict that none will
+be discovered, that can bear any better test of their genuineness than
+those to which we have just alluded.[9]
+
+It is the office and duty of the historian to seek out facts, to
+distinguish the true from the false, to sift the wheat from the chaff,
+to preserve the one and to relegate the other to the oblivion to which
+it belongs.
+
+Tested by the canons that the most judicious scholars have adopted in
+the investigation of all early history, we cannot doubt that the
+Northmen made four or five voyages to the coast of America in the last
+part of the tenth and the first part of the eleventh centuries; that
+they returned to Greenland with cargoes of grapes and timber, the latter
+a very valuable commodity in the markets both of Greenland and Iceland;
+that their abode on our shores was temporary; that they were mostly
+occupied in explorations, and made no preparations for establishing any
+permanent colony; except their temporary dwellings they erected no
+structures whatever, either of wood or of stone. We have intimations
+that other voyages were made to this continent, but no detailed account
+of them has survived to the present time.
+
+These few facts constitute the substance of what we know of these
+Scandinavian discoveries. Of the details we know little: they are
+involved in indefiniteness, uncertainty, and doubt. The place of their
+first landing, the location of their dwellings, the parts of the country
+which they explored, are so indefinitely described that they are utterly
+beyond the power of identification.
+
+But I should do injustice to the subject to which I have ventured to
+call your attention, if I did not add that writers are not wanting who
+claim to know vastly more of the details than I can see my way clear to
+admit. They belong to that select class of historians who are
+distinguished for an exuberance of imagination and a redundancy of
+faith. It is a very easy and simple thing for them to point out the
+land-fall of Leif, the river which he entered, the island at its mouth,
+the bay where they cast anchor, the shore where they built their
+temporary houses, the spot where Thorvald was buried, and where they set
+up crosses at his head and at his feet. They tell us what headlands were
+explored on the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and what inlets
+and bays were entered along the shores of Maine. The narratives which
+they weave from a fertile brain are ingenious and entertaining: they
+give to the sagas more freshness and greater personality, but when we
+look for the facts on which their allegations rest, for anything that
+may be called evidence, we find only the creations of an undisciplined
+imagination and an agile fancy.
+
+It is, indeed, true that it would be highly gratifying to believe that
+the Northmen made more permanent settlements on our shores, that they
+reared spacious buildings and strong fortresses of stone and mason-work,
+that they gathered about them more of the accessories of a national, or
+even of a colonial existence; but history does not offer us any choice:
+we must take what she gives us, and under the limitations which she
+imposes. The truth, unadorned and without exaggeration, has a beauty
+and a nobility of its own. It needs no additions to commend it to the
+historical student. If he be a true and conscientious investigator, he
+will take it just as he finds it: he will add nothing to it: he will
+take nothing from it.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] If it be admitted, as it is almost universally, that the
+Scandinavians came to this continent in the last part of the tenth or
+the early part of the eleventh century, it is eminently fitting that a
+suitable monument should mark and emphasize the event. And it seems
+equally fitting that it should be placed in Boston, the metropolis of
+New England, since it simply commemorates the event of their coming, but
+is not intended to indicate their land-fall, or the place of their
+temporary abode.
+
+[2] The mariner's compass was not discovered till the twelfth or
+thirteenth century.
+
+[3] This statement rests on the interpretation of Professor Finn
+Magnusen, for which see "The Voyages of the Northmen to America," Prince
+Socely's ed., pp. 34, 126. Boston, 1877. The general description of the
+climate and the products of the soil are in harmony with this
+interpretation, but it has nevertheless been questioned. Other Icelandic
+writers differ from him, and make the latitude of the land-fall of Leif
+at 49 deg. 55', instead of 41 deg. 43' 10", as computed by Magnusen.
+
+This later interpretation is by Professor Gustav Storm. Vide _The
+Finding of Wineland the Good_, by Arthur Middleton Reeves, pp. 181-185.
+London, 1890. These interpretations are wide apart. Both writers are
+represented to be able and thorough scholars. When doctors disagree, who
+shall decide? The sciolists will doubtless range themselves on different
+sides, and fight it out to the bitter end.
+
+The truth is, the chronology of that period in its major and minor
+applications was exceedingly indefinite. The year when events occurred
+is settled, when settled at all, with great difficulty; and it is plain
+that the divisions of the day were loose and indefinite. At least, they
+could only be approximately determined. In the absence of clocks,
+watches, and chronometers, there could not be anything like scientific
+accuracy, and the attempt to apply scientific principles to Scandinavian
+chronology only renders confusion still more confused. The terms which
+they used to express the divisions of the day were all indefinite. One
+of them, for example, was _hirdis rismal_, which means the time when the
+herdsmen took their breakfast. This was sufficiently definite for the
+practical purposes of a simple, primitive people; but as the breakfast
+hour of a people is always more or less various, _hirdis rismal_
+probably covered a period from one to three hours, and therefore did not
+furnish the proper data for calculating latitude. Any meaning given by
+translators touching exact hours of the day must, therefore, be taken
+_cum grano salis_, or for only what it is worth.
+
+[4] It has been conjectured by some writers that Columbus on a visit to
+Iceland learned something of the voyages of the Northmen to America, and
+was aided by this knowledge in his subsequent discoveries. There is no
+evidence whatever that such was the case. In writing a memoir of his
+father, Ferdinando Columbus found among his papers a memorandum in which
+Columbus states that, in February, 1477, he sailed a hundred leagues
+beyond Tile, that this island was as large as England, that the English
+from Bristol carried on a trade there, that the sea when he was there
+was not frozen over; and he speaks also of the high tides. In the same
+paragraph we are informed that the southern limit of this island is 63 deg.
+from the equator, which identifies it with Iceland. Beyond these facts,
+the memorandum contains no information. There is no evidence that
+Columbus was at any time in communication with the natives of Iceland on
+any subject whatever. There is no probability that he sought, or
+obtained, any information of the voyages of the Northmen to this
+continent. Ferdinando Columbus's Life of his father may be found in
+Spanish in Barcia's Historical Collections, Vol. I. Madrid, 1749. It is
+a translation from the Italian, printed in Venice in 1571. An English
+translation appears in Churchill's Collections, in Kerr's, and in
+Pinkerton's, but its mistranslations and errors render it wholly
+untrustworthy.
+
+[5] It is somewhat remarkable that most writers who have attempted to
+estimate the value of the sagas as historical evidence have ignored the
+fact, that from a hundred and fifty to three hundred years they existed
+only in oral tradition, handed down from one generation to another,
+subject to the changes which are inevitable in oral statements. They are
+treated by these critics as they would treat scientific documents, a
+coast or geodetic survey, or an admiralty report, in which lines and
+distances are determined by the most accurate instruments, and
+measurements and records are made simultaneously. It is obvious that
+their premises must be defective, and consequently their deductions are
+sure to be erroneous.
+
+[6] If the reader will examine our coast-survey maps, he will easily
+verify this statement.
+
+[7] Although most antiquaries and historical students have abandoned all
+belief in the Scandinavian origin of this structure, yet in the March
+number of Scribner's Magazine, 1879, an article may be found in defence
+of the theory that it was erected in the eleventh century by the
+Northmen. The argument is founded on its architectural construction, but
+it is clearly refuted by Mr. George C. Mason, Jr., in the Magazine of
+American History, Vol. III, p. 541.
+
+[8] In Professor Putnam's Report, as Curator of the Peabody Museum of
+American Archaeology and Ethnology, in 1887, will be found the following
+interesting account of the "Skeleton in Armor:"
+
+     "I must, however, mention as of particular interest relating to the
+     early period of contact between the Indians and Europeans on this
+     continent, the presentation, by Dr. Samuel Kneeland, of two of the
+     brass tubes found with the skeleton of an Indian near Fall River,
+     about which so much has been written, including the well known
+     verses by Longfellow, entitled 'The Skeleton in Armor.' That two of
+     the 'links of the armor' should find their final resting place in
+     this Museum is interesting in itself, and calls up in imagination
+     the history of the bits of metal of which they are made. Probably
+     some early emigrant brought from Europe a brass kettle, which by
+     barter, or through the vicissitudes of those early days, came into
+     the possession of an Indian of one of the New England tribes and
+     was by him cut up for ornaments, arrow points, and knives. One kind
+     of ornament he made by rolling little strips of the brass into the
+     form of long, slender cylinders, in imitation of those he had,
+     probably, before made of copper. These were fastened side by side
+     so as to form an ornamental belt, in which he was buried. Long
+     afterwards, his skeleton was discovered and the brass beads were
+     taken to be portions of the armor of a Norseman. They were sent,
+     with other things found with them, to Copenhagen, and the learned
+     men of the old and new world wrote and sung their supposed history.
+     Chemists made analyses and the truth came out; they were brass, not
+     bronze nor iron. After nearly half a century had elapsed these two
+     little tubes were separated from their fellows, and again crossed
+     the Atlantic to rest by the side of similar tubes of brass and of
+     copper, which have been found with other Indian braves; and their
+     story shows how much can be made out of a little thing when fancy
+     has full play, and imagination is not controlled by scientific
+     reasoning, and conclusions are drawn without comparative study."
+     Vide _Twentieth Annual Report of the Peabody Museum_, Vol. III, p.
+     543.
+
+In an article on "Agricultural Implements of the New England Indians,"
+Professor Henry W. Haynes, of Boston, shows that the Dutch were not
+allowed to barter with the Pequots, because they sold them "kettles" and
+the like with which they made arrow-heads. Vide _Proceedings of the
+Boston Society of Natural History_, Vol. XXII, p. 439. In later times
+brass was in frequent, not to say common, use among the Indians.
+
+[9] There are in many parts of New England old walls and such like
+structures, apparently of very little importance when they were
+originally built, never made the subject of record, disused now for many
+generations, and consequently their origin and purpose have passed
+entirely from the memory of man. Such remains are not uncommon: they may
+be found all along our coast. But there are few writers bold enough to
+assert that they are the work of the Northmen simply because their
+history is not known, and especially since it is very clear that the
+Northmen erected no stone structures whatever. Those who accept such
+palpable absurdities would doubtless easily believe that the "Tenterden
+steeple was the cause of the Goodwin Sands."
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_.
+
+Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the
+original.
+
+Punctuation has been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Discovery of America by the
+Northmen, 985-1015, by Edmund Farwell Slafter
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DISCOVERY OF AMERICA, 985-1015 ***
+
+***** This file should be named 35763.txt or 35763.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/7/6/35763/
+
+Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/35763.zip b/35763.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c7d0a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/35763.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e98eb6c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #35763 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35763)