Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/54

42 of them, and of his constant broils and feuds with his neighbors, was banished and outlawed. As the world was too small for him, he was tempted to try to discover and explore the new land in the West, of the existence of which there were rumors. He therefore sailed west, and discovered an ice-bound country, which he called "Greenland," because, quoth he, "people will be attracted to it if the land has a good name."

This intended fraud upon emigrants was an example that was followed in his own day, as well as in later times, for an imaginative chronicler subsequently asserted that "there is the best of wheat in Greenland."

In 994 Eric and his son Leif, having heard of new lands farther west having been sighted by Bjarne, made up their minds to explore them, and for that purpose bought and fitted out Bjarne's vessel. But Eric while on his way to the port was thrown by his horse, and took his fall as an omen that he was not destined to give any more Greenlands to the world, and he therefore allowed Leif to sail without him., But, from what we know of his proclivities, we may be quite sure that he had a wonderful name already coined for that new land—Vinland the Good. Could words picture a more attractive bait for emigrants?

How much of the story of the subsequent exploration of Vinland by his son Leif is purely imaginary it is difficult to say. All that relates to ship-loads of grapes, self-sown fields of wheat, and the genial semi-tropical winter climate of that favored land, we may dismiss as myths or exaggerations. Where, then, was Vinland situated?

We have one test, viz., the length of the shortest day there. Professor Thorfaeus, who wrote at the beginning of the last century, found that it indicated 49° north, i. e., the latitude of Newfoundland, which was probably very near the mark, for, though Rafn contends for the latitude of Rhode Island, 41° 24' 10" north, the latest authority, the Icelandic-English Dictionary by Gudbrand Vigfasson (Oxford, 1874), makes the hours of sunrise and sunset 8.30 a. m. and 3.30 p. m. (instead of 7.30 and 4.30, as Rafn contends), and therefore carries back Vinland to Greenland.

There is no part of the coast from Greenland to Rhode Island which has not been pounced upon by some writer as the site of Vinland.

We can not depend on the sailing directions of the Sagas, and Captain Graah has shown that, preserved for a long time only by oral traditions, they have been changed to suit the fancy of the different persons to whom we are indebted for their preservation. We have, however, besides the length of the shortest day, another guide, viz., that the natives met at Vinland were Eskimos, or a race resembling them in their boats, etc.—such as the Naskapi, or "Mountaineers," who are found occasionally in Newfoundland. The advocates of the Rhode