292 J. G. BOUEINOT 



" The Pre-Colambian Discovery of America by the Northmen,with translations from the Icelandic Sagas," by B. 

 F. De Costa (Albany N. Y., 1869 and 1890.) This work has for its principal object, as stated by the author, a well 

 known American archœological and historical student, " to place within the reach of the English reading public 

 every portion of the Icelandic sagas relating to the pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Northmen, and to 

 the steps by which that discovery was preceded." He is a firm believer in the historical value of these old 

 manuscripts, and iu New England '' as the scene of the Northmen's exploits." He is of opinion (like Rafn, p. 423) 

 that the description of Markland " agrees with the general features of Nova Scotia," p. 94, n. 



"The finding of Wineland the Good. The history of the Icelandic Discovery of America. Edited and trans- 

 lated from the earliest records bj' Arthur Middleton Reeves. With phototype plates of the vellum mss. of the 

 Sagas," (London, Oxford University Press, 1890). This sumptuous work in 4to is the latest contribution to the 

 subject by an American scholar, who accepts the old Norse records as authentic. The work shows much erudition, 

 and is of great interest and value to the student since it gives not only the texts of the three sagas on which the 

 theory of the American discovery is based, but collects the numerous references to America and its discovery 

 which are found in the ancient literature of Iceland. Mr. Reeves, however, gives the date of Torfteus's first work on 

 the Vinland discovery incorrectly (p. 97); it was first published in 1705 and not in 1715. He has obviously con- 

 founded the former with Histor.a Gronlandiie Antiquœ, printed in the year 1715. An excellent review of the work 

 is given in the Scottish Review for October, 1891. Mr. Reeves died in a railway disaster in 1891. 



" Pre-Columbian Explorations, with critical notes on the sources of information," is the title of the paper by 

 Dr. Justin Winsor, in the Nar. and Crit. Hist, of Am. (i. chap. ii.). Here, as in the case of all articles in this 

 historical work, is found a critical reference to the principal literature that had appeared on the subject previous to 

 1889, when the volume was printed. It contains among other illustrations copies of Rafn's maps of Norse America, 

 of Vinland, and of the Digliton Rock with its inscriptions. Dr. Winsor's conclusion is (pp. 67, 68) that " the weight 

 of probability is in favour of the Northmen's descent upon the coast of the American mainland at some point, or at 

 several, somewhere to the south of Greenland ; but the evidence is hardly that which attaches to well established 

 historical records." Both Reeves, and the writer in the Scottish Review, mentioned above, take exception to these 

 and other remarks of Dr. Winsor, as underrating the value of the sagas and the importance of the Norse voyages. 



"The Vinland of the Northmen", in the 'Trans. Roy. Soc. Can.,' (viii. sec. 2, art. 3.) by Sir Daniel 

 Wilson, President of the University of Toronto, a well known arch;Pologist, is especially interesting to readers of 

 this work on Cape Breton because it refers to a curiously inscribed rock (of which a copy is given in the Trans.), 

 found forty-six years ago at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The rock has been studied by various archscologists, but, as 

 Sir Daniel Wilson shows, a close examination of it proves that it neither accords with the style or usual formula of 

 runic inscriptions, " and for this and other reasons, the Yarmouth stone must take rank with the illusory Thorfinn 

 discovered by the Rhode Island Antiquaries on their famed Dighton rock which still stands by the bank of the 

 Taunton River." The writer also discusses the theory raised by one of the new generation of northern antiquaries 

 (Professor Gustav Storm,) Professor of history in the University of Christiania, who would make Kjalarnes, the 

 northern extremity of Vinland, to correspond with northern Cape Breton and the fiord into which the North- 

 men steered to have been Canso or some other bay of Guysborough County in Nova Scotia; but it does not 

 appear certain that grapes ever grew wild on the Nova Scotia coast, except perhaps, in some favoured part of the 

 present King's and Annapolis Counties. As a matter of fact. Professor Storm has not yet succeeded in weaken- 

 ing the weight of evitlence in favour of some part of southern New England as Wineland the Good. His essays 

 on the subject are given below : — 



"Om Betydningen af 'Eyktarstaor' i Flatobogens Beretning om Vinlandsreiserne ", published in Arkiv for 

 Nordisk Filologi, November, 1885. See Reeves, p. 6. 



" Studier over Vinlandsreiserne, Vinlands Geografi og Ethnografi," in Aarb. f. Nord Oldk, og Hist. Copenh, 

 1887, pp. 293-372. See Reeves, p. 98. 



Sir Daniel Wilson's art. refers to Storm's "Studies of Vinland voyages published in the Mémoires de la Société 

 Royale des Antiquaries du Nord" for 1888, a partial translation of the foregoing "Studier." 



Another article by a Canadian writer is a paper by R. G. Haliburton, (a son of Judge Haliburton, best known as 

 "Sam Slick,'') read before the British Association at Montreal, in 1884, in which he expresses the belief that the 

 vineclad country of the Northmen will be always sought in vain — a ruther sweeping assertion, which Sir Daniel 

 Wilson, in the article just noticed, does not agree with. 



In the ' Trans, of the Roy. Soc. of Can.' (viii. sec. I, art. 5,) there is also a paper on " Les Scandinaves en 

 Amérique," by Alphonse Gagnon, which gives a meagre summary of the evidence in support of the claim of the 

 Northmen to the prior discovery of America, and concludes by summing up in favour of the Rhode Island theory 

 without, however, adding any new facts to the controversy. 



