291 



PROCEEDINGS 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



VOL. II. 1850. No. 38. 



Monday, \th February 1850 {continued'). 



The Hon. LORD MURRAY, V.P., in the Chair. 



3. On the Ante-Columbian Discovery of America. By Dr 

 Elton. Communicated by Dr Traill. 



The object proposed by Dr Elton, is a summary of the knowledge 

 we possess on the discovery of the Continent of America, by several 

 adventurous European voyagers, anterior to the time of Columbus. 



This subject, which has been for almost a century and a half well 

 known to the students of northern history, was first made known to 

 the rest of Europe by the publication of the Vinlandia Antiqua of 

 the celebrated Tor/eeus in 1705 ; and most of the facts given by Dr 

 Elton are extracted from that work. Tor/eBus proved from exist- 

 ing Icelandic MSS., that America was discovered, and even attempted 

 to be colonized, by his enterprising countrymen, in the end of the 

 tenth and beginning of the eleventh century ; and the descriptions 

 transmitted to us prove that they landed on what are now New- 

 foundland, Nova Scotia, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. 



The first adventurer was Lei/, the son of Eirik the Red, who, in 

 A.D. 995, when attempting to pay a visit to his father, the colonizer of 

 Greenland, was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Newfound- 

 land, which he named Helluland, or Rocky Land. From that he 

 sailed south-westward, till he arrived at a country, which from be- 



VOIi. II. 



