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 Norseman it was a fairly common undertaking; and if ships sailed from England and Scotland to Iceland, there is no reason why they should not have pushed little farther and made Greenland. Some of the details which look as if they had come from hearsay alone cause suspicion. We should, too, have expected to meet with some mention of Sinclair's Greenland colony in either Scotch or Orcadian history. Some doubt apparently hangs over his death, as the writer has not been able o discover whether he died in any portion of his Scotch domains or where he is buried. All we re told of his end is that he "is supposed to have died about 1410." It is, then, just possible that he never returned from his Greenland expedition—presuming that he really made it.

The strongest evidence for the "foundation on fact" of the narrative was, till recently, the Zeno map, though here, as usual, it was necessary to suppose much carelessness and interpolation on the part of Zeno the younger. Nordenskjöld considered in 1883 that the topography of the chart was on the whole much in advance of the knowledge of the time when it appeared, and accepted the general truth of the narrative. Nordenskjöld, 'Congrès des Américanistes' (1883), p. 121 ff, is thus summarised: The map in the 1558 edition of the Zeni is based upon an old chart of northern origin, anterior in date to 1482, and probably brought back from his voyages by Antonio Zeno. Of this map no faithful copy is known, but there are two examples with more or less alteration—the map of Zeno the younger, printed 1558, and of Nicolas Donis, printed 1482 (in 'Facsimile Atlas,' text p. 61, a reduced representation), which has not many of the arbitrary modifications of the younger Nicolo, but, on the other hand, places Greenland far too much to the north. The common origin of the two maps is proved by the identity of a great number of names. Zeno's chart has, then, "an immense importance," equal almost to Andrea Blanco's map of the Mediterranean. It is evidently the fruit of many years of experience, which has been acquired by active navigation on the coasts delineated. It must have taken place anterior to the Columbian age, as then for a time knowledge of Greenland was lost. He concludes that there was then less ice to the west of Greenland; that voyages were often made to Greenland; and that those voyages occasionally extended southward to Canada, etc. Nordenskjöld's opinion must carry weight; but Winsor ('America,' i. 127) is unfavorable to the map, and Irminger totally denies that Zeno had ever been in Greenland. The old Olaus Magnus map, which Zahrtmann conjectured to have existed, has, since Major's and Nordenskjöld's opinion was given, turned up. It is evident that Zeno the younger copied much from this map, and thus the only strong argument for his veracity has passed away. I have this fact from Mr. C. H. Coote, of the Map Department, British Museum, who disbelieves in the Zeno story: I must take this opportunity of thanking him for much kind assistance. The mistakes ascribed to Zeno the younger are the misplacing of numerous islands which should be in the Shetlands, and which in the chart appear on the east coast of