610 COSMOS. 



That this first discovery of America, in or before the 

 eleventh century, should not have produced the important and 

 permanent results yielded to the physical contemplation of the 

 universe by the re-discovery of the same continent by Colum- 

 bus at the close of the fifteenth century, was the necessary 

 consequence of the uncivilized condition of the people, and the 

 nature of the countries to which the early discoveries were 

 limited. The Scandinavians were wholly unprepared, by pre- 

 vious scientific knowledge, for exploring the countries in 

 which they settled, beyond what was absolutely necessary for 

 the satisfaction of their immediate wants. Greenland and 

 Iceland, which must be regarded as the actual mother 

 countries of the new colonies, were regions in which man had 

 to contend with all the hardships of an inhospitable climate. 

 The wonderfully organized free state of Iceland, neverthe- 

 less, maintained its independence for three centuries and a 

 half, until civil freedom was annihilated, and the country 

 became subject to Hako VI. King of Norway. The flower 

 of Icelandic literature, its historical records, and the collection 

 of the Sagas and Eddas appertain to the twelfth and thirteenth 

 centuries. 



It is a remarkable phenomenon in the history of the culti- 

 vation of nations, that when the safety of the national treasures 

 of the most ancient records of Northern Europe was en- 

 dangered at home by domestic disturbances, they should have 

 been transported to Iceland, and have been there carefully pre- 

 served, and thus rescued for posterity. This rescue, the remote 



iii. p. 4), might be resumed in England and in Ireland. Is the state- 

 ment based on fact, that the wanderings of Madoc were celebrated in 

 the poems of the Welsh bard Meredith, fifteen years before Columbus' 

 discovery? I do not participate in the rejecting spirit which has, but 

 too often, thrown popular traditions into obscurity, but I am, on the 

 contrary, firmly persuaded that, by greater diligence and perseverance, 

 many of the historical problems which relate to the maritime expedi- 

 tions of the early part of the middle ages ; to the striking identity 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 civilisation in Aztlan, Quivira, and 

 Upper Louisiana, as well as in the elevated plateaux of Cundinamarca 

 and Peru, will one day be cleared up by discoveries of facts with which 

 we have hitherto been entirely unacquainted. See my Examen crit. 

 de THist. de la Geogr. du Nouveau Continent, t. ii. pp. 142-149. 



