1913] Andrews,— “ Plants of Wineland the Good ” 35 
reasonably trustworthy, but such features are surprisingly few, in 
that the two sources show the widest discrepancy. Storm’s method 
in predicating a considerable degree of historical reliability for the 
Eiríks saga rauða at the expense of the other is hardly to be justified. 
That this saga may be relatively better is not tantamount to its being 
reliable and the other worthless. Reeves’ book represents essentially 
Storm's point of view on this matter, as it has generally been adopted 
by subsequent authors. 
Since the publication of Fernald's paper a real contribution to the 
problem of the value of the sources has appeared in Nansen's book.! 
Nansen with the able assistance of his colleagues, Torp, Moe and 
others finds that the grapes and the self-sown wheat associated with 
Scandinavian records of the Norse discovery of America are an off- 
shoot of common mediaeval legends of the “Islands of the Blest,” 
which quite regularly, e. g. in Isidor, etc., were characterized by just 
these features.? 
CoRNELL UNIVERSITY. 
1 Nord i Tákeheimen. Kristiania. 1911. The book has been accessible to me only 
in the English translation: In Northern Mists. New York. 1911. The essential 
points with reference to the Norse discovery of America may also be found in the 
Geographical Journal, xxxviii, 557 ff. 1911, being a lecture delivered by Nansen before 
the Royal Geographical Society, Nov. 6, 1911. 
2 Of interest is also the discovery brought out by the first partial publication of 
Nansen's results that similar results had been attained independently and earlier by a 
Swedish scholar, Söderberg. (Cf. In Northern Mists, ii, 62ff.). Nansen's brief esti- 
mate of Fernald's publication (ii, 5f.) is in entire accord with the considerations I have 
given expression to above. 
