64 ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



A regular trade being now established between 

 Norway, Greenland and Iceland, one of the Iceland 

 colonists, BioRN by name, about the year 1001, 

 while following his father to Greenland, from 

 whom he had been separated while on a trading 

 voyage in another ship, was accidentally driven by 

 a storm considerably to the south-west of Green- 

 land, where he discovered a new country covered 

 with wood. This discovery being made known on 

 his return to Iceland, Lief, the son of Eric Rauda, 

 fitted out a ^vessel, and with Biorn as a pilot and 

 a crew of thirty-five men, revisited the country 

 just discovered. Here he traversed a considerable 

 extent of coast, and sailed up a river to a lake from 

 which it took its rise, where he wintered. In this 

 country, called by the discoverers Wniland or Vin- 

 land, from the circumstance of grapes having been 

 found in it, the day was eight hours long in 

 winter ; from whence it appears, that they must 

 have been somewhere on the coast of North Ame- 

 rica, or contiguous islands, near the parallel of 50°, 

 probably on the shore of Newfoundland. Lief 

 returned to Greenland the following spring. His 

 brother Thorwald afterwards proceeded to Win- 

 land, where he pursued the discovery of the adja- 

 cent countries during two years, without seeing any 

 inhabitants ; but, in the third year, he met with 

 three boats upon the coast, covered with leather, 

 containing three Indians each, which he seized, and 



