VJNLANl) AND ITS RC/IJVS. 



167 



filJed ill with earth. Often, however, the walls w^ere built entirely 

 of turf and earth, or with only disconnected rows of stones at the 

 base. Wood also was sometimes used. It is stated in Thorfinu 

 Karlsefni's Saga that some of the trees in Vinland were " so large 

 they w^ere laid in a house." 



A long, narrow fireplace usually extended through the middle 

 of the principal room, and an essential feature was the cooking 

 fireplace, which was about one metre square. These were either 

 paved or surrounded by upright stones. The plan is of the ruin 

 of the house of Eric the Red in Haukadalr, Iceland. It shows the 

 different forms of fireplace, and that the walls, which were built of 



Ancikxt Wall in Iiklanh, sikiwing Layers of Tiff between the Si' 



turf, were one and a half metres thick. Outhouses w^ere often 

 dug into the hillside, and were sometimes walled up on the inside 

 with stone and turf. Ruins of such old settlements in Iceland are 

 usually low, grass-grown ridges and hollow^s. 



When Professor Horsford first visited the site which his study 

 of maps and literature had led him to believe was Vinland, he 

 found a few hollows in the hillside and also some broad, low" ridges 

 on the level ground, indicating that a building about twenty metres 

 long by five metres broad had once stood there. There was also 

 a mound some distance away which has since proved to be of mod- 

 ern construction. 



