NOTES. 



Ixxv 



the constant rivals of the Scandinavians in the northern parts of the Atlantic, 

 and even that the Irish preceded the Scandinavians in the Faroe Islands and 

 in Iceland. It is much to be desired that in our days, when a healthy spirit 

 of criticism, severe but not contemptuous, prevails, the old investigations of 

 Powel and Richard Hakluyt (Voyages and Navigations, Vol. iii. p. 4) might 

 be resumed in England, and also in Ireland itself. Are there grounds for the 

 statement that fifteen years before Columbus's discovery, the wanderings of 

 Madoc were celebrated in the poems of the Welsh bard Meredith ? I do not 

 participate in the rejecting spirit which has but too often thrown popular 

 traditions into obscurity ; I incline far more to the firm persuasion that, by 

 greater diligence and perseverance, many of the historical problems which 

 relate to the charts of the early part of the middle ages, to the striking agree- 

 ment in religious traditions, manner of dividing time, and works of art in 

 America and Eastern Asia ; to the migrations of the Mexican nations, to 

 the ancient centres of dawning civilization in Aztlan, Quivira, and Upper 

 Louisiana, as well as in the elevated table lands of Cundinamarca and Peru,- 

 will one day be cleared up by discoveries of facts which have been hitherto 

 entirely unknown to us. See my Examen crit. de 1'Hist. de la Geogr. du 

 Nouveau Continent, T. ii. p. 142149. 



(^ 4 ) p. 240. Whereas this circumstance of the absence of ice in February 

 1477 has been adduced as a proof that Columbus's Island of Thule could not 

 be Iceland, Finn Magnusen found, in ancient historical sources, that up to 

 March 1477 the northern part of Iceland had no snow, and that in February 

 of the same year the southern coast was free from ice (Examen crit. T. i. p. 

 105 ; T. v. p. 213). It is very remarkable, that Columbus, in the same 

 " Tratado de las cinco zonas habitables," mentions a more southern island, 

 Frislanda ; a name which plays a great part in the travels of the brothers 

 Zeni (1388 1404) which are mostly regarded as fabulous, but which is 

 wanting in the maps of Andrea Bianco (1436), and in that of Fra Mauro 

 (14571470). (Compare Examen crit. T. ii. p. 114126.) Columbus 

 cannot have been acquainted with the travels of the Fratelli Zeni, as they 

 even remained unknown to the Venetian family until the year 1558, in which 

 Marcolini first published them, 52 years after the death of the great admiral. 

 Whence was the admiral's acquaintance with the name Frislanda ? 



( 3 ~ 5 ) p. 241. See the proofs, which I have collected from trustworthy 

 documents, for Columbus in the Examen crit. T. iv. p. 233, 250, and 261, 

 and for Vespucci, T. v. p. 182 185. Columbus was so mil of the idea of 

 Cuba being part of the continent of Asia, and even the south part of Cathay 



