604 COSMOS. 



peopled from Iceland a hundred years later (983). The 

 colonisation of Iceland, which Naddod first called Snow-land, 

 Snjoland, was carried through Greenland in a south-western 

 direction to the New Continent. 



The Faroe Islands and Iceland must be considered as 

 intermediate stations and starting points for attempts made to 

 reach Scandinavian America. In a similar manner the set- 

 tlement at Carthage served the Tyrians in their efforts to 

 reach the Straits of Gadeira, and the Port of Tartessus ; and 

 thus, too, Tartessus, in its turn, led this enterprising people 

 from station to station on to Cerne, the Gauleon (Ship Island) 

 of the Carthaginians.* 



Notwithstanding the proximity of the opposite shores of 

 Labrador (Helluland it mikla\ one hundred and twenty-five 

 years elapsed from the first settlement of the Northmen in 

 Iceland to Leif's great discovery of America. So small were 

 the means possessed by a noble, enterprising, but not wealthy 

 race for furthering navigation in these remote and dreary 

 regions of the earth. The littoral tracts of Vinland, so called 

 by the German Tyrker from the wild grapes which were 

 found there, delighted its discoverers by the fruitfulness of 

 the soil, and the mildness of its climate, when compared with 

 Iceland and Greenland. This tract, which was named by 

 Leif the " Good Vinland " ( Vinland it goda\ comprised the 

 coast line between Boston and New York, and consequently 

 parts of the present States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and 

 Connecticut, between the parallels of latitude of Civita Vecchia, 

 and Terracina, which, however, correspond there only to mean 

 annual temperatures of 47* 8 and 52*l.f This was the prin- 

 cipal settlement of the Northmen. The colonists had often 



* See p. 494. 



f These mean annual temperatures of the eastern coast of America, 

 under the parallels of 42 25' and 41 15', correspond in Europe to the 

 latitudes of Berlin and Paris, places which are situated 8 or 10 more 

 to the north. Besides the decrease of mean annual temperature, from 

 lower to higher latitudes is here so rapid that, in the interval of lati- 

 tude between Boston and Philadelphia, which is 2 41', an increase of one 

 degree of latitude corresponds to a decrease in the mean annual tempe- 

 rature of almost 3. 6, while, according to my researches, on the system 

 of isothermal lines in Europe, the same decrease of temperature scarcely 

 amounts to half a degree for the same interval. (A sie centrale, t. iii. 

 p. 227.) 



