Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 56.djvu/183

Rh in front. Professor Horsford fixed Thorfinn's landing place a short distance south of this, on solid ground. Geologists are unable to say how long ago the salt marshes were formed. They are on Winthrop's map of 1634, but the sjávar-gata could hardly have been accessible as a landing place after their formation.

In summary, it may be said that at the only point of land on the coast of North America which we have found to correspond with the description of the site of Thorfinn Karlsefni's houses, ruins have been dug out which bear peculiar features characteristic of the period in Iceland known as the Saga-time, and differing



in certain essential features from the handiwork of all the native races of North America, and, as far as is known at present, from all other races in Europe or in America in post-Columbian days.

The following extracts, from reports by Dr. Gudmundsson and Mr. Erlingsson, refer to the ruins described in the preceding paper. The plan for these researches was first to compare the aforesaid ruins with the work of the native races supposed to have inhabited or visited these shores, next with that of the Norsemen of the eleventh century, and later, if necessary, with the earliest English, French, Spanish, and Dutch ruins on these shores. Dr. Gudmundsson and Mr. Erlingsson noted the