THORFINN KARLSEFNI 41 



that the remains resembled Icelandic ruins, but they 

 found in them pieces of pottery assuredly from a later 

 period and therefore left it to American experts to 

 decide whether they were not remains of later settle- 

 ments.*^ 



William H. Babcock has written a valuable book 

 on the Vinland voyages.*^ He draws attention to the 

 fact that since Thorfinn's time the land has sunk a 

 great deal on the eastern coast, and from that he con- 

 cludes that the bay that E. N. Horsf ord and his daugh- 

 ter refer to was not there a thousand years ago.*^ He 

 believes that Hop was most likely what is now called 

 Mount Hope Bay in the state of Rhode Island. This 

 bay is landlocked in a way which the Icelanders styled 

 "h6p"j the Taunton River drains into it. Two estu- 

 aries lead to the sea: one, the Sakonnet River, east 

 of Rhode Island, which Babcock thinks may have been 

 formed in recent centuries through the sinking of the 

 land, and the other, the Bristol Narrows, to the north- 

 west. The Bristol Narrows have an outlet into the 

 Eastern Channel and Narragansett Bay. Formerly, 

 bow-shaped sand bars had been across the channel 

 where now are shallows. Babcock draws attention to 

 other local features that correspond with the descrip- 



*^ Cornelia Horsford, Vinland and Its Ruins, Popular Science 

 Monthly, Vol. 56, 1899-1900, pp. 160-176. 

 ^^ Babcock, of. cit. 

 ^'^ Ibid., p. 136. 



