The Assers befell the colony in GreenAn Ace & had been many years established. Pe decors became involved in wars with Ax, and they suffered a great deal phs sure. In the second place, a great

called the black death, which broke out with great fury in all the northern of Europe about this time, extended of last to Iceland, and thence to Greenland, nd carried off great numbers of the people. Wy, as if to complete and seal the ruin of the

logy, a series of severe winters set in, in consequence of which the ice accumulated to such an

ent in the neighboring seas that all access to she coasts of Greenland was cut off, and the poor imprisoned exiles were left to struggle as they could, alone, with the terrible elements of destruction which were reigning so gloomily around them.

When, at length, after the lapse of many years, the ice so far released its hold as to allow a Danish ship once more to approach the land, very few traces of the old colony were to be found.

VOYAGE OF LIEF AND BIORN.

Very soon after the establishment of the colony in Greenland, and before the calamities above men

tioned came to blast the hopes of the settlers, two of them, named Lief and Biorn, made a voyage to the southward, and explored a considerable portion of the American coast. Lief was the son of the principal founder of the colony, and he was induced to make this voyage from the report of an Icelander, who, on attempting to come to Greenland in a vessel, was blown off in a storm far to the southward. He succeeded finally in working his way back again, and on arriving in Greenland he reported that he had seen a country to the southward that was well covered with wood. Accordingly the governor's son determined to make a voyage in that direction, to see what he could find.

It was early in the summer when the vessel sailed, and the party did not return until the next season. The account which they gave of their adventures was this:

They went to the southward for some distance, and at length came to a large rocky island. They named this island Helluland. After this they came to a low country well covered with wood, which they named Markland. They still went on, and at length, some days later, they discovered a larger and far more attractive country than any they had yet seen. There was a river and trees

miei vil fm evig a de banks of L They is immi sine the ging ʼn me vous With serum Sarnas vim der ind vid den i bari among de saturs nui dem vere de Blue & fuse in ke cha 1 der aunty, fom vici vile the maje

Tisket dreinstance interested the party of Čas Ty mad, fr de Leiniers seem never to hare sa gaps bere. They scariúgy named tills counny Vzelani

They found natives in is curry, bus dey were of very mall scature, the the Esquimaux, who are so Korn that the Islanders had given tiem a Lame wikh in their country signified dwill They all these natives dra's too. They baubten in possession of fars and skins, wish they were ready to sell for such articles as the voyagers lad on board their ship The voyaagers being much pleased with the country, and fnding too, perhaps, that the season was too far spent to make it safe for them to attempt to make their way back through the ice to Greenland, landed and spent the winter there, and then in the following summer returned.

DIFFERENT OPINIONS IN RESPECT TO THESE DISCOVERIES.

These voyagers had no means of making obser

vations for latitude and longitude, so as to ascertain precisely how far south it was that they had. found the fertile land. They, however, reported that the time during which the sun remained above the horizon, in the shortest day in winter, was nine hours.

In all the northern regions through which these Arctic wanderers had been accustomed to roam, the time during which the sun remains above the horizon, in the shortest day of winter, was the mark and measure of the latitude and climate of every country, and indeed almost of its whole condition in respect to fitness for the habitation of

man.

1

It is now known that the latitude which gives nine hours for the shortest day in winter is that of Rhode Island; and consequently, if the report of these voyagers is true, it must have been somewhere in the region of Narraganset bay that their Vineland was situated. It is not at all improbable, however, that they exaggerated somewhat the length of their shortest day, and if so, their position would have been further north. Some persons have supposed, indeed, that the whole story is a fiction, or that at most it is an exaggerated account of some small expedition to the western or southwestern shores of Baffin's Bay, and that

Columbus was really the first person of direct European extraction that set his foot upon the shores of the American continent. But the opinion of those best qualified to judge is, that this voyage of the Northmen was really made, and that notwithstanding the renown to which Columbus is justly entitled for his subsequent discoveries, the Atlantic coast of America was really visited by European adventurers many centuries before his day.

THE RUNIC INSCRIPTION.

A great deal of interest was excited in 1824 by the discovery of a singular stone, far up the coast of Greenland containing an inscription in Runic characters. This name Runic was applied to an alphabet of sixteen letters, of very singular forms, which were in use in ancient times among all the Scandinavian nations-that is, the people of Sweden and Norway, and of other neighboring countries. The character was used sometimes for public inscriptions, but it was more generally employed by priests and conjurers, for charms and spells, and mystical and magical devices of all sorts. Words of strange and hidden meaning were written in it, within figures of various forms, such as circles, triangles, squares, and the like, and there were different ways of writing, according as