THE DANISH ANTIQUARIES. 107 



nounced the rock at Dighton to be si monument of that class, and the characters 

 upon it a memorial of the occupation of the country by the Scandinavian navigators. 



It was, therefore, with some elation of feeling, and greatly increased confidence, 

 that the routes of the Northmen were traced along the shores of New England, 

 and the positions determined, where they had stationed themselves. Supported 

 by such tangible evidences of habitation, there was also less hesitation in extending 

 the claim of Scandinavian discovery to the more Southern portions of the United 

 States. Anticipations were indulged in, that the interpretation put upon the 

 Dighton inscription would be confirmed by the development of other vestiges of 

 that people; and when, after the publication of the volume devoted to these 

 proofs, its author received from Dr. Webb a drawing of the circular stone structure 

 at Newport, of whose erection no distinct account had been preserved, and some 

 copper ornaments or implements found with a skeleton at Fall River, much learning 

 was employed to prove by analogies that these also were of Scandinavian deriva- 

 tion. 1 



But if hopes were thus excited that the veil of mj'stery was to be lifted from 

 any portion of American archaeology, they were not sustained by cooler reflection 

 and more careful scrutiny. The great dissimilarity in the different delineations of 

 the forms of the marks on the Dighton stone, impaired confidence in the possibility 

 of assigning to them any positive signification as linguistic characters. The im- 

 probability that the structure at Newport could have been in existence when that 

 place was settled by the English without attracting general attention and remark, 

 combined with the fact that both records and traditions referred to it as a wiad- 



1 Antiquitates Americans, sive Scriptorcs Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Colurabiauaruin, in Ame- 

 rica. Hafnias, 1837. 



Supplement to Antiquitates Americans : 1841. 



Memoires de la Societe Royale des Antiquaires du Nord : 1840, 1844. 



An Advertisement by the Danish Society, of the "Antiquitates Americaua;" after an account of the 

 Sagas embraced in the work, contains the following statement : — 



" To which are added : 1. A description accompanied by delineations and occasionally by perspective 

 views of several Monuments, chiefly Inscriptions, from the middle ages, found partly in Greenland and 

 partly in the States of Massachusetts and Rhode Islaud in North America, on the one hand confirming 

 the accounts in the Sagas ; and on the other illustrated by them. II. Detailed Geographical Inquiries 

 lately undertaken at the instance of the Society, whereby the sites of the regions and places named in 

 the Sagas are explored, and are pointed out under the names by which they are uow commonly known, 

 viz : Newfoundland, Bay of St. Lawrence, Nova Scotia, and especially the States of Massachusetts 

 and Rhode Island, and even districts more to the South, probably situate in Virginia, North Carolina, 

 and in Florida, which is supposed to be the most southerly land mentioned in the most authentic Saga 

 accounts, although sundry of the northern geographers of the middle ages would seem to intimate their 

 knowledge of the easterly direction taken by the continent of South America. They are chiefly based 

 on the accounts in the ancient MSS., and on the explanations of the astronomical, nautical, and geo- 

 graphical statements contained in the same, which besides receive the most complete confirmation from 

 accounts transmitted by distinguished American scholars, with whom the society have entered into 

 correspondence, and who, after several journeys undertaken for that object in Massachusetts and Rhode 

 Island, have communicated accurate illustrations respecting the nature of the countries, their climate, 

 animals, productions, etc., and have furnished the society with descriptions and also with delineations 

 of the ancient monuments found there." 



