﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA — BABCOCK 73 



the sun had eyktarstad and dagmalastad on the shortest day of 

 winter. 



The history of the controversy over this latter item will be found 

 in Reeves's notes appended to The Finding of Wineland the Good, 

 with the verdict of two astronomical experts, working independently 

 on both sides of the Atlantic, that it proves only a northern limit about 

 the upper end of Newfoundland. In other words, Leif or rather 

 Thorflnn can not have been farther northward than this at the time of 

 taking the observation, but may have been somewhat farther south — 

 how far is not stated. 



Bishop Howley * presents what may be called the gastronomic 

 view, as opposed to the celestial. Dagmalastad is admittedly break- 

 fast-time, and the eykt measured the interval to the afternoon meal. 

 Thus regarded, the Icelanders were merely expressing their satis- 

 faction at being able to eat both meals by sunlight every day through 

 the winter. Of course they were sailors and practical would-be 

 settlers and this view is somewhat tempting at first glance. 



But they really could take observations at need after a fashion, 

 and were willing to report the same for the people at home; as in 

 the celebrated case of that Arctic expedition in 1266, which went 

 farther than any one could follow it until the nineteenth century. 

 The sun, they reported, shone about July 25th over the gunwale of 

 a seven-oared boat on the face of a man lying across the bottom with 

 his head against the opposite rail. Also at a given time the sun was as 

 high at midnight as when it was in the northwest in settled Green- 

 land. The first latitude depends in part on the height of the gunwale 

 and the exact position of the man's face; the second on the chosen 

 point of the settlement. Probably there was approximately a stand- 

 ard size and pattern of boat and Gardar would be understood as the 

 home observatory ; so these two made after all a pair of rough and 

 ready indications ; from which Raf n deduced a parallel between the 

 75th and 76th degrees. Thalbitzer thinks they probably did not pass 

 the 73d, but bases his estimate on matters of the coast-outline 

 rather than calculation. This primitive nautical observation makes 

 a good precedent for the Flateybook statement, which also has an 

 authentic look, although there is no record of it before 1387 or there- 

 about. 



Apparently it relates to the northern dwelling-place beside 

 Straumfiord, which may well come within the limits allowed by the 

 modern astronomers' calculation, especially if we allow for some 



1 Vinland Vindicated, before cited. 



