File:Popular science monthly (1872) (14766522952).jpg

Identifier: popularsciencemo27newyuoft (find matches)
Title: Popular science monthly
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors:
Subjects: Science
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton
Contributing Library: Gerstein - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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has not been pounced upon by some writer as the site of Vin-land. We can not depend on the sailing directions of the Sagas, and Cap-tain Graah has shown that, preserved for a long time only by oraltraditions, they have been changed to suit the fancy of the differentpersons to whom we are indebted for their preservation. We have,however, besides the length of the shortest day, another guide, viz., thatthe natives met at Vinland were Eskimos, or a race resembling them intheir boats, etc.—such as the Naskapi, or Mountaineers, who arefound occasionally in Newfoundland. The advocates of the Rhode LOST COLONIES OF NORTHMEN AND PORTUGUESE. ^^ Island theory, in order to explain the presence of Eskimos so far south,have started the hypothesis that the Skraellings at the beginning of theeleventh century inhabited the eastern coast of North America as farsouth as Rhode Island, but were driven into the Arctic regions by theraces now found on the sea-coast. Not a particle of evidence can be ad-
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duced to support this idea, and the authorities cited by Rafn disproveit, for an Icelandic geographer describes the more northern country,Furderstrands, as too cold for human habitations, and as bounded onthe south by Skraellingsland. Their home, therefore, was then, as itstill is, Labrador. From the various accounts given by Rafn, I prepared a map, show- 44 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. ing Helluland, Markland, and Vinland, which proved to agree almostwith the maps of the Northern Atlantic by the Icelander Sigurd Stepha-nius (1570), and by Gudbrandius Torlacius (1606), except that I madeGenunga Gap run between Markland and Vinland, in accordance withone of the authorities quoted by him. It is clear that what is now called Greenland was assumed to be anextension of the north of Europe, and that Greenland embraced allthe country north of the Strait of Belleisle. Davis Strait was lookedupon as an inlet running into Greenland, but not as a strait separatingGreenland from the land to the w

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