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HERE are many claimants for the honor of discovering America before Columbus, the chief among them being the Scandinavians, Welsh, Basques, Irish and Normans, but of these the Scandinavians seem to have the strongest case. As early as 876 it is claimed by the ancient Norse sagas that voyages were made from Iceland to the west and that new lands were discovered in that quarter. To this land, which was called Greenland, Eric the Red is supposed to have led some colonists in 985. In 986 Bjarni Herjulfson claimed to have discovered a new land "flat and covered with trees" about nine days' sail southwest of Greenland. But the discovery upon which the greatest stress is laid is that by Leif, son of Eric the

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Red, who in the year 1000 sailed from Greenland to the southwest taking with him 35 companions for the purpose of visiting the land supposed to have been discovered by Bjarni. Touching land" at a place "at where a river flowed out from a lake," they found large quantities of wild grapes growing there and called the region Vinland (Vineland or Wineland). These explorers are said to have erected buildings there and to have carried back to Greenland a large cargo of timber. In 1007, the Scandinavian advocates claim, a permanent settlement was made in Vinland by nearly 100 colonists who "had all the good things of the country, both of grapes and of all sorts of game and other things," and soon after trading ships began to ply

between Vinland and Greenland, carrying timber principally. In 1121 Eric Upsi, a Greenland bishop, is supposed to have gone to Vinland and in 1347 a Greenland vessel sailed there for some timber. These references are

the last made by the sagas to Vinland. The spot where the Scandinavians are supposed to have settled is located in various places by different authors who claim the discovery for the Norsemen, but the concensus of opinion seems to be that this spot was somewhere on the coast south of Labrador. As the sagas are not an absolutely trustworthy authority for the voyages, the conjecture cannot be considered as history unless backed by other evidence, such as remains of settlements, etc. It is doubtful if the Norsemen ever established a settlement in America, for if they had there would certainly have remained some vestiges of it such as abound in Greenland.* It is claimed that the old mill at Newport and the Dighton Rock were monuments erected by these early voyagers, but this has been disproved and, as Thwaites says, "it is now safe to say that nowhere in America, south of undisputed traces in Greenland, are there any acceptable archæological proofs of these alleged centuries of Norse occupation in America."t

These discoveries and the few or many visits made to Vinland, however, whether authentic or not, made no impression upon the Old World, and the Northmen and their voyages were soon forgotten. Mr. Wheaton observes, moreover, that "there is not the slightest reason to believe that the illustrious Genoese was ac

quainted with the discovery of North America by the Normans five centuries before his time, however well authenticated that fact now appears to be by the Icelandic records to which we have referred."* Mr. Fiske says: "It is in the highest degree probable that Leif Ericsson and his friends

by Longmans, Green & Co.). See also A. Farnum, Visits of the Northmen to Rhode Island, in Rider's Historical Tracts, no. 2; G. C. Mason, The Old Stone Mill at Newport, in Magazine of American History, vol. iii. (1879); J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, vol. i. (The Old Stone Mill); Brooks, The Controversy Touching the Old Stone Mill.

* Henry Wheaton, History of the Northmen, or Danes and Normans, from the Earliest Times to the Conquest of England by William of Normandy, p. 31. See also the Antiquitates Ameri cana edited by Rafn (1837); R. B. Anderson, America not Discovered by Columbus (3d ed., 1883, giving extensive bibliography); N. L. Beamish, Discovery of America by the Northmen; Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. i., chap. ii.; B. F. De Costa, PreColumbian Discovery of America by the Northmen (2d ed., 1890), and The Northmen in Maine (1870); A. M. Reeves, The Finding of Wineland the Good (1890); C. F. Slafter, Voyages of the Northmen to North America (1877); E. N. Horsford, Discovery of America by Northmen; Joseph Fischer, Discoveries of the Norsemen in America (1903); Charles Morris, Leif the Lucky and the Discovery of Vinland, in The Discoverers and Explorers of America, pp. 9-13 (1906); Julius E. Ollson and Edward G. Bourne, The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot 985–1503.