﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 5 1 



hunger, of storm and electrical discharges, or weave simple dramas 

 of war and home life in more or less likeness to each other. The 

 chain of such evidence is not strong enough to hold. 



Lacrosse, the national game of Canada, has also been claimed by 

 Hertzberg and Nansen a as a Scandinavian contribution, but Mooney, 

 who is better authority as to aboriginal idiosyncracies and probabil- 

 ities, tells me that it is distinctively Indian. Nor can one easily believe 

 in such an acquisition reaching the southern tribes so quickly in the 

 conditions then probably prevailing. The Eskimo game reported by 

 Egede seems a strained parallel and a poor partial coincidence. 

 Giving the Norwegian game the benefit of all doubt as to substantial 

 identity with lacrosse, we must not forget how cat's-cradle, that very 

 artificial sport of ingenuity, occurs from of old in Britain and 

 Polynesia (see Porter's Journal) and how even the most surprising 

 expedients and preposterous customs have apparently been rein- 

 vented repeatedly in remote parts of the world. 



One w r ould be inclined to consider more seriously the double- 

 headed axe and the gouge, both peculiar to Scandinavia and north- 

 eastern America, which were exhibited by Holmes, December 27, 

 191 1, before- the American Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, but it may be best to imitate his caution in drawing no 

 inferences. Such topics tempt the fancy and their accumulation can- 

 not quite fail to leave some impress. But they prove nothing. 



Next beyond the State of Maine, and at the entrance to the broad- 

 spread, lovely Passamaquoddy or St. Croix Bay, lies Grand Manan, 

 theoretically one of the most hopeful, or least hopeless, fields for 

 research, spreading obliquely north-northeast and south-southwest in 

 the mouth of the great Bay of Fundy. Thus far, no trace of anything 

 earlier than the American Revolution (and not unmistakably Indian) 

 seems to have been found on that island, unless it t>e an anchor 

 greatly reduced by long rust and ocean wear, and attributed by 

 some to Champlain, though without any obvious reason. Doubtless 

 many other Frenchmen anchored there in olden times, and Mr. 

 Mcintosh of the Natural History Museum at St. John, New Bruns- 

 wick, assures me that French anchors are often found in various 

 parts of the province. Since nothing that can be identified remains 

 of Champlain on or near Grand Manan, it is the less remarkable that 

 we should find no trace of Thorfinn's party, who landed, if at all, 

 600 years earlier. Such traces may, however, be hidden there, for 

 the northwestern side of the island presents at least 20 miles of wilder- 



x The Norsemen in America. Geogr. Journ., vol. 38, p. 574 ; also In Northern 

 Mists., vol. 2, pp. 38-41. 



