VINLAND AND ITS RUINS. 175 



such a house as this built in the beginning of the eleventh century could 

 not have stood five hundred years before its roof and the upper parts of 

 the walls fell down. 



On the other side of the road we found an end of an old path paved 

 with small stones, running from the house in the hillside along the edge 

 of the old river bank down to a kind of promontory which in olden time, 

 when the water stood much higher than it now does, seems to have served 

 as a landing place. In the middle of this path, which was from about 

 six to ten inches under the surface, was a hollow as trodden down by the 

 feet of men and (perhaps) horses. This path is very like Icelandic paths, 

 such as may still be found in many places in Iceland. But as we in some 

 places in this path found some bricks between the stones which formed 

 its pavement, it must be regarded as doubtful whether it is Scandinavian. 

 The bricks seem rather to speak for a post-Columbian origin, though 

 the whole path is so primitive that it hardly can be suggested that so 

 advanced a people as the first post-Columbian colonists should have made 

 such a path. To settle the question whether it could belong to those 

 colonists must be left to American scholars. This path seems, at any 

 rate, to have been made by the same people who built the house in the 

 hillside, so either both of them must be regarded as post-Columbian or 

 they both are Scandinavian. Another path run^ from this landing place 

 in a westerly direction along the old river bank, where it stops very 

 abruptly on a certain spot a very short distance east of the supposed 

 " Thorfinn's house." As I could not find any other reason for its stop- 

 ping on this spot than that near it stood a building, I examined the river 

 bank beside it, and here I found the earth, about eight inches under the 

 surface, mixed with charcoal, which could indicate that some refuse from 

 a house had been thrown there. This seems to lead to the conclusion 

 that there at the end of this path really has stood a building, of which 

 we could not now expect to find any traces, or even a building con- 

 structed of turf only (turf walls), which also might have wholly disap- 

 peared, as earth walls on an elevated ground like this perhaps might have 

 blown away. 



The result of these researches is briefly, according to my opinion, this : 

 As far as concerns the construction, both the house in the hillside and 

 the two paths, or the two branches of the path, could be of Scandinavian 

 origin, but I am not so well acquainted with the life and customs of 

 the first post-Columbian colonists as to be able to decide whether they 

 could not have been made by them. This, therefore, must be left to 

 American scholars. Very respectfully yours, 



Valtyr Gudmundsson. 



Cambridoe, Mass., July 16, 1896. 



From Mr. Erlingsson's Report. 



It is not uncommon in Iceland that houses, especially small out- 

 houses, are dug into small hills, hillsides, or sloping ground, just as this 

 house is. It is, in fact, built very like what I have seen in outhouses in 

 many places in Iceland, and what is left of the walls here nobody could 

 distinguish from Icelandic walls. The size and the whole form is also 

 very like an outhouse, but as most frequently in outhouses either all the 

 four walls are made of stones or none of them, it would seem strange 

 that one of the walls here is completely wanting. But those stones which 



