OCEANIC i^ISCOVERIES, 231 



Storms to Iceland while attempting to reach the Faroe Islands, 

 which had already been visited by the Irish. The first settle- 

 ment of the Northmen was made in 875 by Ingolf. Green- 

 land, the eastern peninsula of a land which appears to be 

 every where separated by the sea from America proper, was 

 early seen,* although it was first peopled from Iceland a hund- 

 red years later (983). The colonization of Iceland, which 

 Naddod first called Snow-land, SnjolaTid, was carried through 

 Greenland in a southwestern direction to the New Continent. 



The Faroe Islands and Iceland must be considered as in- 

 termediate 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. t 



Notwithstanding the , proximity of the opposite shores of 

 Labrador i^Helluland it mikla), one hundred and twenty-fivo 

 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 re- 

 gions 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 Ice- 

 land 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 Con- 

 necticut, between the parallels of latitude of Civita Vecchia 

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

 annual temperatures of 47°*8 and 52°- 1.$ This was the prin 



* Gunnbjdrn was wrecked, in 876 or 877, on the rocks subsequently 

 called by his name, which were lately rediscovered by Captain Graah. 

 Gunnbjdrn saw the east coast of Greenland, but did not land upon it. 

 (Rafn, Antiquit. Amer., p. 11, 93, and 304.) 



t See ante, p. 132. 



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

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

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

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

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

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



