324 HUMBOLDT'S COSMOS : 



only, have of late years received ample confirmation from 

 the researches of Rafn, the great northern scholar of our own 

 times. The documents which he obtained and has pub- 

 lished, attest not only the act of discovery, but indicate by 

 the direction and length of voyage, by the times of sunrise 

 and other curious particulars, the exact coasts thus examined, 

 including Newfoundland, Nova-Scotia, Massachussets, &c.* 

 These various records, both numerous and authentic, come 

 to us from that extraordinary island of Iceland, which during 

 the llth, 12th, and 13th centuries, created and maintained 

 amidst its snows and volcanic fires, a literature that would 

 have honoured the happiest climes of Europe. Succeeding 

 the period thus signalised to us, a series of physical and social 

 calamities extinguished this northern light; at which later 

 time and in the same gloom, we lose sight of the land of 

 Vinland, and all traces of this remarkable discovery disap- 

 pear. Should we ever regain them, it must probably be on 

 the American coast itself. But the ruder Norsemen left 

 behind them no temples or palaces like those of Nimroud, to 

 be disentombed for the admiration and instruction of distant 

 ages ; and their simply written records alone remain to attest 

 this ancient discovery.f 



We have already had occasion to notice the Introduction 

 to the third volume of the Cosmos, when speaking of the 

 entire work. This volume itself is occupied solely with the 

 subject of Astronomy, under the title of ' Special Results in 

 the Uranological portion of the Cosmos ; ' a cumbrous form 

 of expression which well justifies the remarks we have made 



* In a Dissertation on the History and Literature of Iceland, prefixed to Sir 

 Gr. Mackenzie's Travels, I have stated my entire belief in the validity of this 

 claim, founded on books and other documents I procured when travelling in 

 that Island. But my information was small in amount compared with that 

 which Danish antiquarians have since obtained on this curious subject. 



t Eafn, Antiquit. American. 



