112 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



the only competitor that has been seriously urged. Finally, the 

 stranding of the wreck which left its keel, if we may treat this as 

 a verity, would be much more likely to occur on Cape Breton Island 

 than on Cape Cod in times when the sailing was all farther northward, 

 and in view of the arrangement and direction of the ocean streams. 

 But we are at liberty to dismiss the keel. 



A wonderful succession of beaches and low shores began with 

 Keelness, being whatever was above water of the eastern earth-wall 

 of the Bras d'Or and the main seashore of Nova Scotia. Apparently 

 it was such a coast as we find now along New Jersey or Maryland, 

 seemingly interminable strands, with nothing but low sand dunes 

 and occasional inlets to break the monotony of desolation and loneli- 

 ness. Few things in nature are more impressive, but it is not a cheer- 

 ing impression. We may fancy Gudrid and her companions looking 

 over the landward gunwale at that unchanging panorama, with woods 

 and hills of little variety for a background, and wondering if they 

 would never have done. Surely we can give no other meaning to 

 " This was a bleak coast with low and sandy shores. They called 

 them wonderstrands because they were so long." The plural may 

 indicate slight breaks in the outline here and there. 



These people had swift ships. Beaches of ordinary length must 

 also have been familiar to all of them. They would not feel a 

 monotonous sail of but four or five hours. They would not marvel 

 at a stretch of fifty miles ; but if they had to follow down from Cape 

 Henlopen to Cape Charles, or along any equal stretch of strand, they 

 might well record the wearying novelty as a " wonder." It would 

 rank equal with the great treeless wastes of Helluland or the immense 

 forest area below, or that great " ness " which guarded the entrance to 

 the inner Gulf. I think the Wonderstrands must have stretched for 

 at least a hundred miles. 



On grounds to be explained, it seems more than probable that 

 the main Wineland home of these settlers was at the mouth of the 

 Bay of Fundy. Between the tip of Cape Breton and that point, we 

 have the outer coast-line of Nova Scotia, said to be somewhat over 

 three hundred and fifty miles. Obviously then, the outer coast-line 

 of Nova Scotia was their Wonderstrands. The palpable fact that 

 Nova Scotia does not now supply these wonderstrands except perhaps 

 on a lesser, though relatively considerable scale along the front of 

 Richmond County over which boats are sometimes drawn, to the 

 interior Bras d'Or, seems to have compelled Dr. Storm to piece out 

 this part of his theory with minor beaches that the Icelanders would 



