Soieniijic Intelligmc0 — Miscellaneout. 391 



ounce droppings per day, we shall have not less than above thirty tons, 

 and deducting one-half of the above supposed quantity, for evapo- 

 ration, an d other casualties, there will still be above fifteen tons of 

 this valuable substance produced every day. From what has been 

 observed as to the habits and numbers of the guano, their frequent- 

 ing promontories, declivities, and insulated rocks, it follows, that 

 their excrements in certain localities must have accumulated to 

 such an extent, as might induce those persons who may not have con- 

 sidered the subject, to expect that the guano is to be had in un- 

 limited quantity ; but for obvious reasons, that must be a fallacious 

 expectation. — Communicated by Dr Mathie Hamilton, late of Peru. 

 11. Visit of Columbus to Iceland, in 1477, and his Conversations 

 there with learned men. — Karl Wilhelmi, in his recently published 

 work on the Northmen, has the following curious passage regarding 

 Columbus : — " The most remarkable, and the most peculiar state 

 founded by the Northmen, was that in Iceland, as well on account 

 of the particular northern mode of life which was there freely de- 

 veloped to its fullest extent, and which preserved, unimpaired for cen- 

 turies, its laws, language, eloquence, music, and poetry, as of the dis- 

 covery of America, which was made from that country five hundred 

 years before Columbus. That immortal Genoese himself sailed from 

 England, in a ship from Bristol, in the year 1477, and visited the 

 island of Iceland, where he was confirmed in his conviction of the 

 existence of land in the West, by the convei-sations he carried on in 

 the Latin language, with the Icelandic priests, and other learned 

 men." * In regard to this subject, Washington Irving, in his Life 

 of Columbus, vol. i. p. 69, says,—" While the design of attempting 

 the discovery in the West was maturing in the mind of Columbus, 

 he made a voyage to the north of Europe. Of this we have no 

 other memorial than the following passage, extracted by his son 

 from one of his letters : — ' In the year 1477, in February, I navi- 

 gated one hundred leagues beyond Thule, the southern part of which 

 is seventy-three degrees distant from the Equator, and not sixty- 

 three, as some pretend ; neither is it situated within the line which 

 includes the west of Ptolemy, but is much more westerly. The 



* Island, Hvitramannaland, Gronland, und Vinland, oder der Norrmanner Lehen 

 auf Island und Gronland, und deren Fahrten nach Amerika sc/ion iiber 500 Jakre 

 vor Columbus. Heidelberg, 1842. 



