52 REVIEWS— SCANDINAVIAN ARCHEOLOGY AND HISTORY. 



scientific ideas of the Arabians of the Universe ; their conceptions of 

 the form of the earth ; their mathematical division of the earth ; 

 their measurement of the degrees ; and the division of the habitable 

 globe into seven regions or climates. Another chapter treats at length 

 of the terrestrial system of seas ; the limitation of the earth by the 

 ocean, and the parts of the latter ; the Southern Ocean, with its 

 coasts and islands, and the several seas connected therewith ; the 

 Eastern Ocean ; the Western Ocean, and its connected seas ; the 

 Mediterranean, with the Black Sea and the Caspian ; the isles in the 

 Western Ocean, and the coasts of the same ; and the Northern Lands, 

 known to the Arabs, surrounding the Varenger Sea. 



Among the many local names here mentioned as occurring in the 

 works of the Arabian geographers, there is one of especial interest. 

 It afPords a supplement to Rafn's Antiquitates Americance, published 

 by the Society in 1837. The result of th geographical inquiries in 

 this work on the situation of the Northmen's Helluland (Newfound- 

 land), Markland (Nova Scotia), and Vinland (New England), has 

 been taken up, with full approval, by Alexander Humboldt, in his 

 Kosmos. A more southern land the Northmen named Hvitramanna- 

 land (the land of the White Men) ; or, Irland it Mikla (Great Ire- 

 land) . This was supposed by Rafn to be North and South Carolina, 

 Georgia, and Florida. The oldest historian of Iceland, Are Erode, 

 states that his stam-father. Are Marson, came to this land about the 

 year 983, and was baptized there. This same land — Irland it Mikla, 

 Irlandeh El-Kabirah — is also mentioned by an Arabian geographer of 

 the 12th century, Ahu-Abdallah Mohammed Edrisi, who was born in 

 Ceuta, in 1099, and had studied in Cordova. He drew up his work 

 at the desire of Roger II., King of Sicily (1130-1154.) The above 

 geographical name, as well as several other notices of the North, were 

 doubtless derived by the Arabian author from his intercourse with the 

 Northmen, at the court of this sovereign, in Palermo. 



It is most interesting to follow the often highly successful identifica- 

 tion of the local names mentioned by the Arabian geographers, es- 

 pecially those of several islands in the Western Ocean ; places in 

 France and England ; and also in Scandinavia, particularly Denmark, 

 where Slesvig is mentioned in a curious manner ; and also in Sweden. 

 The same thing applies to Russia. An extract from a voyage in the 

 twelfth century (1132), by Ahit-Ahdallali Hamid, of Granada, gives 



