IN NORTHERN MISTS 



320° : ^ " These are the people to whom the Dane Johannes 

 Scowus penetrated in the year 1476." The description of 

 Scolvus as a Dane may indicate the same source as the 

 English mention of him in 1576.2 



Finally it may be mentioned that Georg Horn in his 

 work " Ulysses peregrinans " (Louvain, 1671), after speaking 

 of voyages of the Icelanders (Thylenses) to " Frisland or 

 Finmark" (sic!), to Iceland, Greenland, Scotland, and 

 Gotland under " auspiciis Margaretae Semiramis Dan., Sued., 

 Norv.," and then of the voyages of the Zenos in the year 

 1390, says: 



"Joh. Scolnus Polonus discovered under the auspices of Christian I. King 

 of the Danes, the Anian-strait and the country Laboratoris in the year 1476." 



The Anian-strait was the mythical strait between Asia 

 and north-western America, which was talked about and 



1 Cf. Harrisse, 1892, pp. 286 f., 658. The inscription reads: " Quii populi 

 ad quos Johannes Scowus danus pervenit. Ann. 1476." 



2 Just as the above is at press, I have received a sheet of Dr. Bjornbo's new 

 work [1910, pp. 256 f.], from which it appears that the inscription mentioned 

 above is already found on Gemma Frisius's globe engraved by Gerard Mer- 

 cator, probably 1536-1537 (found at Zerbst, and reproduced for the first time 

 in Bjornbo's work). The inscription is placed on the polar continent, to the 

 north-west of Greenland, and reads: " Quij populi ad quos Joes Scoluss danus 

 peruenit circa annum 1476." Bjornbo translates it: " Quij, the people to 

 whom the Dane Johannes Scolvuss [Scolwssen?] penetrated about the year 

 1476." (The interpretation of the word " Quij " as the name of a people may 

 be probable, especially as the same word occurs, as pointed out by Bjornbo, as 

 the name of a people on Vopell's map of the world of 1445). This is there- 

 fore the oldest notice of Scolvus's voyage at present known, and it may seem 

 possible, though not very probable, that he reached a land to the west of 

 Greenland. The L'Ecuy or Rouen globe (of copper) is evidently a copy of 

 the Frisius-Mercator globe, and has the same inscriptions. It may be to the same 

 source (or to a contemporary work of Gemma Frisius), that Hakluyt referred 

 (cf. above, p. 129, note 2), and several statements in the English document of 

 about 1575 (p. 129) seem also to be derived from it. As Gomara calls Joan 

 Scolvo " piloto," which is not on the globe (but on the other hand is found in 

 the English document!), and as, further, he has not the dates, he may possibly 

 have had a somewhat different authority. It is interesting to note, as shown 

 by Bjornbo, that the Frisius-Mercator globe seems to betray Portuguese asso- 

 ciations, and thus its information about Scolvus may also have come from 

 Portugal. 



