108 ARCHEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



mill, discountenanced the idea that it could have any other than a modern origin; 

 and a more particular investigation of the circumstances connected with the Fall 

 River skeleton showed that little weight could he attached to that relic as a source 

 of reliable evidence. 



The narratives of the voyages of the Northmen, and their discovery of this 

 country, are, however, regarded as well attested, leaving the question open as to 

 the distance in a southerly direction to which their observations extended; and 

 many striking coincidences seem to justify the conclusion that the Vinland of these 

 narratives was really in Narraganset Bay. 1 



There is a fact which deserves to be mentioned in connection with the " Fall 

 River Skeleton" that we have not seen anywhere so employed. The articles found 

 upon it which excited the interest of the Danish antiquaries were, as described, a 

 brass breastplate; brass arrow-heads; and a belt made of small tubes of the same 

 metal, a few inches in length, fastened together side by side. These are certainly 

 unusual articles to find associated with the person of a savage who lived before the 

 occupancy of the country by the English. But in Brereton's Brief and True Rela- 

 tion of the Discovery of the North Part of Virginia (New England), by Gosnold, in 

 1602, it is stated that Avhile they were at an island, since identified, and lying off 

 the coast nearest to Fall River, the natives came to them from the mainland, and 

 the articles they brought with them are described as follows: "They have great 

 store of copper, some very red and some of a paler color; none of them but have 

 chains, ear-rings, or collars of this metal; they head some of their arrows herewith, 

 much like our broad arrow-heads, very workinanly made. Their chains are many 

 hollow pieces cemented together, each piece of the bigness of one of our reeds, a 

 finger in length, ten or twelve of them together on a string, which they wear about 

 their necks; these collars they wear about their bodies like bandeliers, a handful 

 broad, all hollow pieces like the others, but somewhat shorter, four hundred pieces 

 in a collar, very fine and evenly set together. Besides these, they have large 

 drinking cups made like skulls, and other thin plates of copper made much like 

 our boar-spear blades, all which they so little esteem, as they offered their fairest 

 collars or chains for a knife or such like trifle." 2 



As Gosnold, according to the same narrative, had just previously found a Bis- 

 cayan shallop, with mast and sail and an iron grapple, in possession of eight Indians, 

 one of them " apparelled in a waistcoat and breeches of black serge," and another 

 in " a pair of breeches of blue cloth," there is no difficulty in supposing that all 

 these materials came from the wreck of some unfortunate fishing vessel, notwith- 

 standing Brereton says the Indians intimated by signs that they obtained their 

 metal from the earth. 



In 1838, the late President Harrison prepared his well-known Discourse for the 



1 A very lucid synopsis of the contents and claims of tlie "Antiqtiitates Americana;," by Hon. Edward 

 Everett, appeared in the A 7 ". A. Review, for January, 1838; and a translation of all the most important 

 Sagas, with a critical examination of their authenticity, by Joshua Toulmin Smith, was published at 

 Boston, and also reprinted in Loudon in 1830, with maps; and was again printed in London in 1842, 

 with maps and plates. 



- Pnrchas's Pilgrims, Vol IV; reprinted in Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d ser. Vol. VIII. 



