FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 309 



endoAved with a .special culture and lieirs of the ancient civilization of the East, 

 upon tlie theatre where modern civilization was undergoing its definite develop- 

 ment. This scries of momentous events, we repeat, in proportion as it conveyed 

 to each people the traditions and impressions of the rest, as it brought into 

 contact, beneath another climate and sky, under natural conditions essentially 

 different from those in which they had before lived, the natives of regions most 

 widely remote from one another, could not but prompt human reason to discard 

 the trivial ideas which it had cherished and insensibly adopt others more in 

 harmony with the truth of nature. And this, be it observed, without the inter- 

 vention of ancient science, lost or at least forgotten amidst the convulsions 

 which had swept away its cultivators, and solely by an immediate effect of the 

 events which, at the epoch of regeneration referretl to, constantly modified the 

 state of societies. 



The incursions of the northern hordes having at last ceased, the present 

 nationalities began to take shape ; and if the systematic cultivation of the sci- 

 ences was not yet to be expected, at least a delight in their study began to 

 dawn. Nor did eventual circumstances, and such as might have appeared ex- 

 traneous, cease to stimulate the taste for voyages and discoveries. As the 

 occupation of the south and west of Europe by their warlike predecessors 

 opposed an insuperable barrier to the progress, in that direction, of the Scandi- 

 navians or Normans who brought up the rear of tbe Asiatic migration, these 

 established themselves permanently on the shores of the Baltic, and from thence, 

 impelled by their roving and hardy genius, explored the northern islands and 

 continents, the archipelagoes of Shetland and Feroe, Iceland, and, in the tenth 

 and two succeeding centuries, the inhospitable coasts of Greenland, and those, 

 somewhat more fertile, of Vineland, the present Labrador. * Meanwhile there 

 arises in Asia a formidable empire, whose limits expand witli astonishing rapidity 

 from the seas of India to the frontiers of Europe, giving rise to the dread of a 

 new invasion of destructive races ; yet its service as a counterpoise to the Sara- 

 cenic power, not less formidable on another side, is appreciated, and pontiffs 

 and kings- send embassies, sometimes to propitiate the redoubtable successors 

 of Genghis-Khan, sometfmes to solicit help from Tartar and Mogul princes, at 

 times simply in sign of admiration and respect. At their return from these 

 distant scenes, observers like Ascelin, Carpini, Rubruquis, Polo, Sotomayor, 

 and Clavijo, whether sent as ambassadors or led thither by inclination, com- 

 municate their impressions and adventures without reserve, and awaken in all 



* The following is a recapitulation of the later discoveries referred to in the text. They 

 may be found more particularly described in the eighteenth book of Malte Brun's Geography, 

 and in the notes to the tburteenth book of Cesar Cautu's Universal History. 



About the middle of the ninth century Iceland was discovered, and before the end of the 

 century a numerous colonj' of northmeu was established in that island. In 986, among 

 olher colonists, one called Eric the Red, having been banished from Iceland, takes reiuge in 

 Greenland. Biorn, son of Eriulph, one of the companions of Eric, desirous of joining his 

 father, freighted a ship and directed Iris course towards Greenland, but wandering for some time 

 in those seas, got a sight of new coasts other than that which he was seeking. In the same 

 ship with Biorn, Leif Ericson, son of Eric the Red, set sail iVom Greenland in the year 1000, 

 and visited in succession a sterile, rocky and snow-CDvered coast, (Helluland;) another 

 level, hoar with frost and well wooded, (Markland;) and a third, which abounded in vines, 

 (Vineland.) Thorwald and Thorstein, brothers of Leif, prosecuted, with no successful result, 

 the exploration of these lands, as did others of the same race. And though commerce and 

 communication between Iceland, Greenland and the parts last mentioned, continued for a 

 considerable length of time, they underwent many alternations, and proved of no real im- 

 portance to geography. Judging from the descriptions given, as well of the lands as of the 

 celestial phenomena which were observed, Markland seems to correspond to Nova Scotia, 

 and Vineland to the region about Cape Cod, as far eouth as latitude 4i'\ If the documents 

 published by the Society of Northern Antiquaries may be relied on — and it is not our province 

 to controvert them — Columbus made no true discovery ; but how the Icelandic adventurers 

 came to stop midway, and allowed the intrepid Genoese to snatch from them the domain 

 of a world, is a phenomenon difficult to explain, and, in our opinion, more discreditable than 

 otherwise to those in whose honor it is cited. 



