Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/168

156 reported the finding of rude stone instruments, to which must be added other finds from Guanajuato, Rio Juchipila, and other Mexican localities.

This leads at once into the interesting argument how far any existing people are the descendants and representatives of man of the post Glacial period. The problem whether the present Esquimaux are such a remnant of an early race is one which Professor Boyd Dawkins has long worked at, and will, I trust, bring forward with full detail in this appropriate place. Since he stated this view in his work on "Cave Hunting" it has continually been cited, whether by way of affirmation or denial, but always with that gain to the subject which arises from a theory based on distinct facts. May I take occasion here to mention as preliminary the question, were the natives met with by the Scandinavian seafarers of the eleventh century Esquimaux, and whereabout on the coast were they actually found? It may be to Canadians a curious subject of contemplation how about that time of history Scandinavia stretched out its hands at once to their old and their new home. When the race of bold sea-rovers who ruled Normandy and invaded England turned their prows into the northern and western sea, they passed from Iceland to yet more inclement Greenland, and thence, according to Icelandic records, which are too consistent to be refused belief as to main facts, they sailed some way down the American coast. But where are we to look for the most southerly points which the sagas mention as reached in Vineland? Where was Keel-ness, where Thorvald's ship ran aground, and Cross-ness, where he was buried, when he died by the skräling's arrow? Rafn, in the "Antiquitates Americanæ," confidently maps out these places about the promontory of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, and this has been repeated since from book to book. I must plead guilty to having cited Rafn's map before now, but when with reference to the present meeting I consulted our learned editor of Scandinavian records at Oxford, Mr. Gudbrand Vigfusson, and afterward went through the original passages in the sagas with Mr. York Powell, I am bound to say that the voyages of the Northmen ought to be reduced to more moderate limits. It appears that they crossed from Greenland to Labrador (Helluland), and thence sailing more or less south and west, in two stretches of two days each they came to a place near where wild grapes grew, whence they called the country Vineland. This would, therefore, seem to have been somewhere about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it would be an interesting object for a yachting-cruise to try down from the east coast of Labrador a fair four days' sail of a viking-ship, and identify, if possible, the sound between the island and the ness, the river running out of the lake into the sea, the long stretches of sand, and the other local features mentioned in the sagas. While this is in the printer's hands, I hear that a paper somewhat to this same effect may come before the Geographical Section, but the matter concerns us here as bearing on the southern