902 



r.EPORT — 1881. 



southerly points -vvbich the Sagas nieutiou a.s veaduul in Yinelaml i" Wh-i- wa^ 

 Kuel-ness, where Tliorvald's sliip ran a^M'ound, anrl Crobs-ni'.ss, wliere ho was binit'd. 

 wlicn he died by the 8hriiling".s arrow ■' llafn, in tht; ' Antiqnitates Amoricanje ' 

 confidently majw out these placfs about tin; promontory of Cape Cod, in Massa- 

 chusetts, and this lias been repeated sinco from book to ))ook. I must plead :.'iiiliv 

 to liavinp; cited Uafn's map before now, but wlieii with ri'lerencc to tht' pr'-^eiit 

 meeting" I consulted our luanied editor of Scandinavian records at Oxf nd. Mr. 

 Gudbrand \'igfusson, and afterwards went through the original passages in iH' 

 Sagas with .Mr. York Powell, I am l)0und to say that tlic voyages of ilie NorTlinirii 

 oug'it to be reduced to more moderate limits. It appears that theyeross.d Iron: 

 Gre» idand to Lalirador (llelluland),and tJK.MK'c sailing more or less south and we.sl; 

 ill two stretches of two days each they came to a place near where wild grapes irrew. 

 whence they called tiie countrv Vine-liind. This would, tlierefore, seem 'o liave 

 been somewhere about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it would be an hit.r.sting 

 object for a yachting cruist; to try down from tlie e;ist coast of l-iabrador a t'air feui 

 days' sail of a viking shij), and identify, if ])ossible, 'lie sound between the island 

 and the ness, tlie river running out of the lake into the sea, the long stretches ol 

 sand, and the otlier local features menti<uied in the Sagas. Whilt,' this is in the 

 printer's Iiands, I hear that a pa]ier somewhat to this same eilect may come li.for- 

 the Geographical Section, but the matter concerns us here as bearing on the southen: 

 limit of the Esquimaux. The !-'l:r(i/iiit/s Avho came on the se.i in skin canoe- 

 (hud/iJceipr) , ixnd hurled their spears with slings [valsliiiii/va), seem by these very 

 facts to have been probably Esquimaux, and vlie mention <if their being swarthy, 

 witli great eyes and broad clieeks, agrees tolerably with iliis. The statemeni 

 usually made that the word nhriiliitu meant ' dwail" would, if correct, have settled j 

 the question; but, unfortunately, there is uo real warnint for t Ids etymology. Il i 

 we may take it that E.squimaux 800 years ago, before they liad ever found 'licii 

 way to Greenland, were hunting seals on the coa^l of X<'wl'ouiidliind, and carllm:: 

 in the forest, their life need not have been very unlike what it is now in tlieirArctir] 

 home. Some day, perhaps, the St. Lawrence and Newfouuflland shores will b 

 searched for relics of Esquimaux life, as has been done with such succi-s.s in the 

 Aleutian Islands by Mr. W. II. Dall, though on this side of the continent we cai'.j 

 hardly expect to iind, as he does, daces of long residence and rise fiun .; =*:11 1 iweii 

 condition. 



Surveying now the v.ast series of so-called native, or iudigenous, tribes of North 

 and South America, we may admit that the fundamental iK^t ion on which Am-ricar 

 anthropology lias to be treated is its relation to Asiatic. This kind of research isJ 

 as we know, quite old, but the recent advances of zoology and geology have giyenj 

 it new breadth as well as facility. The theories which account for t!ie wide-lying| 

 American tribes, disconnected by language as they are, as all descendftd fronij 

 ancestors wlio came by sea in boats, or across IJeliring's Straits on the ice, v.iiiy I'l^ 

 felt somewhat to strain the ])robabilities of migration, and are likely Jo ii- lej 

 modelled under the information now supplied by geology as to the di.stributi.in olj 

 animals. It has become a familiar fact that the Equidie, or horse-like animals, 

 belong even more remarkably to the New than to the Old World. Tliero w^as 

 plainly land-connection lietween America and Asia, for the iiorses wlio.se remains 

 are fossil in America to have been genetically connected witli the horses iv-int re- 

 duced from Europe. The deer may have pa.s'sed from t lie Old World into Nortli 

 America in the Tliocene jieriod ; and the opinion is strongly held tliat the camels 

 went the other way, originating in America and spreading thence into Asia amj 

 Africa. Tlie mammoth and the reindeer diil not cross over a few thousancf 

 years ago by Behruig's Straits, for they had been since Pleistocene times spread 

 over the north of what was tiieii one continent. To realise this ancient land-junction 

 of Asia and America, this 'Tertiary-bridge,' to use Professor Marsh's expressioiiJ 

 it is instructive to look at ^Ir. Wallace's chart of the present soundings, ob'^erv-j' 

 ingthatan elevation of under l'OO feet woniil make IJehring's Straits land, wliila 

 moderately shallow sea extends southward to about the line of the Aleutisi!!] 

 Islands, below which comes the plunge into the ocean depths. If, then, W'- are f'! 

 consider America iis having received its human population by ordinary migrationl 



