sents one of the grandest spectacles which nature anywhere affords, and the solemn sounds emitted by those stupendous movements, in the stillness of an Arctic night, strike all who witness them with an indescribable awe.

The movements to and fro of these immense masses of ice, when free, and the bridging of the waters which they effect when fixed, have exercised a great influence upon the distribution of plants and animals in America, and may have been the first means of introducing man.

THE FIRST RECORDED MIGRATION TO AMERICA.

The first case, however, which is historically recorded of a passage to Greenland from the European shores was that of a man driven across in a vessel by a storm. The name of this adventurer was Gunbiorn. He lived in Iceland, and was blown off from that island by a gale of wind, and after visiting the shores of Greenland, and finding them inhabited by men-who must, of course, have preceded him ages before, but who had left no record of their migration—succeeded in finding his way back to Iceland again. This took place in the year 910, which was something like fifty years after Iceland itself was first discovered and settled by the Norwegians and Danes.

There was nothing, after all, very surprising in this voyage of Gunbiorn, for the distance from Iceland to Greenland was not so great as it was from Iceland to the European shores, so that the Danes and Norwegians in colonizing that island had already made more than half the voyage.

Besides, these Northmen, as they were called, were as bold and adventurous sailors as the world has ever seen. Considering how few of the facilities which are enjoyed at the present day were at their command, they accomplished expeditions as hazardous and extraordinary as any of their successors have undertaken to the present day.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DANISH COLONY.

It will be seen, by reference to the map, that in making the voyage from Iceland to Greenland the direction in which Gunbiorn must have been driven by the gale was toward the southward. We are apt to have a wrong impression in respect to the relative situation of these coasts, on account of their coming in different hemispheres in the maps which we are accustomed to see. To remedy this the map here given has been constructed on a plan to represent this region of the earth's surface more as it appears upon the globe, and it shows very clearly that in going toward the southern part of Greenland an Iceland navigator was advancing to the southward, and of course to warmer regions, while yet, at the same time, he was going further away from the European shores, from which he and his ancestors had originally come.

Gunbiorn carried back a favorable report of the

land that he had discovered, though it was not favorable enough to induce any of his fellow-countrymen to attempt to visit it for many years. But at length, in 983, a certain chief named Eric Raude, having killed another chief in a quarrel, was compelled to fly from the country by sea, and he went to Greenland. After being absent for some time he returned, and brought back very glowing accounts of the beauty and fertility of the land. Indeed, the name Greenland, which it now received for the first time, was given to it by Eric in token of its extraordinary verdure. His accounts were greatly exaggerated, no doubt, although as they were, of course, intended to describe the condition and character of the country in comparison with those of Iceland, which lay so much to the northward of it, his descriptions were probably not so extravagant as they might seem.

In consequence of his reports and of the efforts which he made to induce the Danish authorities to act upon them, a large expedition was fitted out with a view of proceeding to Greenland to make a settlement there. The expedition consisted of twenty-five vessels. These vessels contained a large number of settlers for the new colony, both men and women, and also cattle, and supplies of seeds and utensils of all sorts necessary for such a community.

About one half of these vessels reached their destination. The rest were scattered by storms, or wrecked among the fields of ice and lost.

Those that landed established friendly relations with the natives whom they found already there, and formed two settlements, which continued to thrive for some time. Numbers came to join these settlements from Iceland, and also from the Orkney Islands, and from the coast of Norway. When we reflect upon the discomfort and the danger which must have attended such voyages as these, made in small and frail vessels, and directed across the most stormy and ice-infested seas, and with no guidance for the navigator but the sun and starsfor the mariner's compass was not known for some centuries after this time-and consider, moreover, the dreadful hardships which the colonists must inevitably have suffered in founding settlements in so wintry and inhospitable a land, we can not but be amazed at the courage and fortitude which they displayed. It would seem that the dauntless energy evinced by our forefathers in the settlements which they made on the Atlantic coast, five or six centuries later, is more renowned only because they have left a more numerous progeny to talk about and applaud them.