﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK IO7 



eye-witness ; * Dr. Grenfell, who has spent most of his life in humane 

 service along that shore; Mr. W. S. Wallace, his historical coadjutor 

 and Dr. Storm, 2 reasoning from totally different experience and data, 

 all take the same view, but with less local exactness. It is needless to 

 add further corroboration. Helluland was Labrador, although it may 

 have been first seen in the stretch between Hopedale and Nain. 



From the islands near Godthaab to a point slightly below Nain 

 may be 450 miles. The assumed impossibility of Thorfmn's making 

 the crossing in the time stated (probably 48 hours for open sea-sail- 

 ing like this) led Mr. Reeves to suggest a copyist's error, substituting 

 " two " for seven. But this is purely hypothetical, involves a really 

 prodigious time-allowance and would call for too much later repeti- 

 tion of verbal errors, as well as too great length for the entire journey. 



It may be well to see what has been actually recorded in more 

 recent times. A writer on long distance lake-racing in " Yachting," 

 for June, 1910, page 407, cites the " Vencidor " as making 331 miles 

 in 34 hours, with wind astern or nearly so, a third of the distance 

 being " through rockstrewn channels, where reefs and islands furnish 

 continually shifting currents and high shores give baffling slants of 

 wind." This is nearly at the rate of ten miles an hour, and perhaps 

 we may fairly suppose twelve or more for the two-thirds of open 

 water. Again, on the Atlantic between Nassau and Havana, we 

 learn ; 3 " The ' America ' logged a distance of 400 miles in 40 hours, 

 260 of which was made in the first twenty- four hours." This seems 

 a reasonably fair comparison, the voyage being in about the same 

 direction as Thorfmn's and for only a little less distance, though in 

 much more southern latitudes. No doubt the difference between the 

 distance made in the first day and that in the second is to be explained 

 by some change either in the course or the wind. We are given to 

 understand that there was neither in the Norsemen's case. 



Now this schooner-yacht " America " was beaten by " the big 

 sloop ' Maria,' " which " walked away from her " 4 in sea-sailing before 

 the wind, and we are assured by the same work that this feat would 

 probably have been repeated as often as undertaken and at any time. 

 Further, we find that the proportions of the " Maria," no feet by 26 

 feet 8 inches, and 6 feet greatest draft, were substantially those 



1 Labrador, the Country and the People, by W. T. Grenfell and others, con- 

 taining Wallace's historical monograph. 



2 Studies on the Vineland Voyages, already cited. 



3 G. Bleekman and P. Newton, The Blue Ribbon of the Sea, p. 60. 

 *Ibid., p. 34- 



