72 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IO7 



affirm, however, that there was no snow, and we can hardly accept 

 even that Hterally. At the same time it is a well-known fact that 

 snowfall along the Atlantic coast is much lighter than that even a 

 few miles inland, and remarkably open winters have been recorded 

 at a number of points. Dr. Lewis cites the southern part of Nova 

 Scotia and the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland as areas where 

 one may look for a relatively mild winter climate. He informs me 

 that the lowest temperature ever recorded at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, 

 is seven degrees below zero Fahrenheit and that only once, and adds : 



On some of the Tusket Islands, off the coast of this county, and on islands off 

 the coast of the next county, Shelburne, flocks of sheep are maintained the year 

 around on open wild pasture, being obliged to depend entirely on their own 

 foraging for their food and to live day and night, in fair weather or foul, without 

 any fold, shed, or other artificial shelter. I can recall two different winters in 

 which my father, when operating his farm on the mainland near Yarmouth, 

 did all his plowing in the month of January, when the land was entirely free 

 of both frost and snow. 



Most of our cattle probably would not fare as well, but the stock of 

 the Greenlanders, although housed during the winter, was no doubt 

 accustomed to more severe weather conditions than the common run 

 and might have stood proportionally more. 



A summary of the arguments for and against a location of Wine- 

 land on the southern shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the 

 southern New England coast is now in order. Rivers with lakelike 

 expansions corresponding sufficiently well to Hop and with offshore 

 bars are present in both regions. Grapes grew plentifully in the latter 

 area, and they formerly grew in parts of Nova Scotia and New 

 Brunswick. The case for the St. Lawrence region depends on several 

 factors — whether the Norsemen found grapes near their landing 

 place or farther inland, and whether they were actually found in such 

 quantities as the Flat Island Book and one expression in the Saga of 

 Eric the Red would lead one to expect. Both regions have a winter 

 climate rather more severe than the narratives indicate. There were 

 parts of Nova Scotia in which winters were comparatively mild, 

 but some of these must be excluded for topographic reasons, and it 

 is doubtful whether similar conditions are ever matched along the 

 south shore of Northumberland Strait. The Atlas of Canada, put out 

 by the Canadian Department of the Interior in 191 5, gives the average 

 annual snowfall of southern New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, 

 and most of Nova Scotia as 60 to 90 inches (map 65), but it is 

 evident that there is less in extreme cases. In southern New 

 England the average number of days of snow cover during the year 



