Page:The Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus - Volume 1.djvu/27

 Sinding, Ole Bull, Jenny Lind, and many others, but enough has been said on this point to demonstrate the fact that the Scandinavians are the peers of any other race in every field of intellectual effort. Considering their numerical strength, they have contributed their full share toward the enlightenment and progress of the world.

The brilliant services which I have cited, and which are universally admitted, have been rendered to the world generally, but I shall now demonstrate by indisputable facts, that the Scandinavians have an honorable place in the annals of America. America is indebted to them for special services. The civilized history of America begins with the Norsemen. Look at your map and you will find that Greenland and a part of Iceland belongs to the western hemisphere. Iceland became the hinge upon which the door swings which opened America to Europe. It was the occupation of Iceland by the Norsemen in the year 874, and the frequent voyages between this island and Norway that led to the discovery and settlement, first of Greenland and then of America, and it is due to the culture and fine historical taste of the old Icelanders that carefully prepared records of the Norse voyages were kept, first to teach pelagic navigation to Columbus and afterwards to solve for us the mysteries concerning the first discovery of this continent. In this connection I want to repeat that the old republican vikings fully understood the importance of studying the art of ship-building and navigation. They knew how to measure time by the stars and how to calculate the course of the sun and moon. They were themselves pioneers in venturing out upon the high seas, and taught the rest of the world to navigate the ocean. Every scrap of written history sustains me, when I say with all the emphasis I can put into so many words, that the other peoples of Europe were limited in their nautical knowledge to coast navigation. The Norse vikings, who crossed the stormy North Sea and found their way to Great Britain, to the Orkneys, the Fareys and to Iceland, and all those heroes who found their way to Greenland and Vinland taught the world pelagic navigation. They demonstrated the possibility of venturing out of sight of land and in this sense, if in