Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland. 183 
sea-water and river-water, which might imply that it was a salt-water 
fish. Moreover Cartier describes it as being as big as a cod-fish, resem- 
bling a grey-hound in body and head, snow white in colour, and very 
savoury. This somewhat fantastic description hardly allows one to state 
what sort of fish it was. So far as I know, no more fish which could 
answer to the Indians “Adothui” are caught in the St. Lawrence, unless 
it perhaps were halibut, which still occur in the Estuary. 
The saga, in addition, gives us the botanical enlightenment regard- 
ing Hop, that vines and “self-sown wheat” were found. Concerning the 
latter, I have, generally speaking, nothing to add to the scrutiny of the 
former authors, and especially with regard to the reference of H6p to 
the place named, I will only remark that, whatever the “self-sown wheat”’ 
may have turned out to be, it could never prejudice the position of Нбр 
in this place. There are practically, I think, only three possibilities as 
regards what “the wheat”? could have been: maize, water-rice (Zizanıa 
aquatica) or another sort of wild grass, which the Norsemen considered 
self-sown wheat, in the same manner as later European discoverers spoke 
of “wild corn”? in several places round the Gulf of St. Lawrence.! I, 
as well as Storm, consider the first possibility, that it was maize cultivated 
by Indians, highly improbable; but in order not to omit any eventuality 
— even the very slight eventuality that the remark about the wheat 
could in some way or other have been influenced by the fact that culti- 
vation of corn was carried on in America, — I will point out, however, 
that here in the St. Lawrence valley we find ourselves in the immediate 
vicinity of an advanced point in the Indians’ cultivation of corn. For the 
rest, I shall not try to take up any stand-point as regards the question 
of “the wheat.” In reality, I do not believe that this point is of any great 
importance, especially when one sees it in connection with the fact that 
Cartier and other later discoverers speak of selfsown corn from Newfound- 
land and from several other places around the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 
On the other hand, the saga’s statement that here vines were to 
be found where the land lay high — whilst the wheat grew where it was 
low — claims a more accurate determination of the question whether 
in those times vines grew in the region of St. Thomas. It would be very 
significant if we could ascertain whether the American Vitis-species were 
still to be found growing wild in that region, and in the same manner 
as Vitis riparia are still to be found on Isle d’Orleans.? Possibly it is 
not the case with this so intensively cultivated region. But on the other 
hand there is not the slightest doubt that they grew there in Cartier’s 
time. Thus it is known that this traveller found so many vines growing 
wild in the adjacent Isle d’Orleans, that he called the island Isle de Bac- 
chus. The region round St. Thomas lies in a more southern latitude 
than the northern part of this island, and there is hardly any reason 
1 cf. Storm p. 344. 
2 cf. Emin Deckert, Nordamerika Leipzig u. Wien 1904, р. 127. 
LVI. 13 
