﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA — BABCOCK iyj 



establishing impost and seignorage tarifs for different ports and of 

 course mentioning many commodities. On pages 4, 17 and 20 are found 

 in separate documents " carrega de Brasill," " faix de bresil"; and 

 " cargua de brazil," the earliest dating 1221, the second 1243 and the 

 third a little later in that century. As they accompany sugar, paper, 

 alum, perfumes, wax, and other miscellaneous goods, nothing can be 

 inferred as to the meaning of the word except that brazil was some 

 generally recognized and packaged article of Catalan trade. In one 

 list grain is mentioned generally and separately, but this need not exclude 

 brazil from being some special grain. Also the words " de qualibet 

 centeria de brasile venali " occur in a 1312 grant of murage rates to 

 Dublin — Patent Roll V. Edw II, Part 2 m 7, as quoted in a recent letter by 

 Mr. Westropp, author of Brasil, etc. But, as he says, it has no necessary 

 relation to dye-woods. It may obviously mean any commodity associated 

 with " Brasil." 



6 (p. 26). Several old maps show the main island of the Bermudas exag- 



gerated, and of approximately crescent form, for example, that of F. 

 de Witte, 1660, and another in the U. S. National Museum, unnamed 

 and undated, but bearing 1668 as its latest discovery entry and belonging 

 apparently to the early eighteenth century. 



7 (p- 38). In point of fact this same feat of blending all the Faroes in one 



with change of place had been performed long before, as appears from 

 an eleventh century map in the British Museum reproduced by San- 

 torem, presenting Ysferi (apparently meaning Island of Fari) as a 

 large island west or northwest of Ireland. Of course Y was a common 

 equivalent of I (Insula) and the name was currently changed slightly, 

 for example, to Frisland by Christopher (or Ferdinand) Columbus as 

 well as Nicolo Zeno. 



8 (p. 40.) Mr. V. Stefansson has recently reported certain Eskimo of white 



racial characteristics on Coronation Gulf near the middle of the 

 top of the continent, with the suggestion that they may possibly be 

 descendants of these Greenlanders. But there are several other ways 

 of accounting for the phenomenon, though perhaps none is perfectly 

 satisfactory, and until we have further light on the subject the safest 

 plan is to treat it as irrelevant. 



9 (p. 109). A more recent interpretation (the Athenaeum, London, Septem- 



ber, 1912), derives two of the Skrelling words from Eskimo. The 

 Athenaeum says : " M. Henri Cordier in the current number of the 

 Journal des Savants calls attention to a proof of the discovery of 

 America in the eleventh century which has hitherto passed unnoticed. 

 In the Saga of Eric the Red it is said that when Thorfinn Karlsefni 

 returned from ' Markland ' or Newfoundland, in 1005, he took back to 

 Greenland with him two children from the northern land of the Skr?el- 

 ings, and four words of their language are preserved in the Saga. 

 These words were thought by the Greenlanders to be the names of the 

 children's parents or chiefs; but M. Cordier shows that they can be 

 traced to Esquimaux phrases of the present day, two of them meaning 

 something like ' Wait a moment ' and ' the Northern Islands ' respec- 

 tively." But Dr. Nansen's derivation of these words from the Norse 

 has a more persuasive air. Since the Icelanders apparently lent their 



