IN NORTHERN MISTS 



happy isle is in reality the Insulae Fortunatae, and that in the 

 " Historia Norvegiae " (see above, p. i) it is said that Greenland 

 (Viridis terra) nearly touches the African Islands (i.e., Insulae 

 Fortunatae), then we possibly have an explanation of this juxta- 

 position. But as it is said in the same passage that Greenland 

 forms the vs^estem end of Europe, v^^e cannot suppose that the 



Part of a Catalan compass-chart of the fifteenth century, 

 preserved at Milan [Nordenskiold, 1892, pL v.] 



cartographer was acquainted with this work. The probability 

 is, no doubt, that Greenland (Ilia verde) together with Brazil, 

 or the Insulae Fortunatae, had become transformed into mythical 

 islands out in the ocean. 



On another compass-chart, bound up in a Paris MS. of 

 Ptolemy of the latter part of the fifteenth century, a similar 

 island (or peninsula?) with the same round island to the south 

 of it, is seen to project southward from the northern border 

 of the chart out into the Atlantic, and a little farther east 

 than the Insulae Fortunatae. On the island is written, 

 " Insula uiridis, de qua fit mentio in geographia " (" The 

 280 



