1884, ] 491 (Phillips. 
On a supposed Runic Inscription at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.* By Henry 
Phillips, Jv. 
On the shore of the Bay of Fundy, opposite the town of Yarmouth, 
stands a rock weighing about four hundred pounds, which, about the end 
of the last century, was discovered by a man named Fletcher. It has 
been well known for nearly an hundred years, and those who dwell in its 
vicinity have always accepted it as a genuine relic of antiquity, no breath 
of suspicion ever having fallen upon it. The glyphs thereon have been 
at various times copied and sent abroad to men of learning who have made 
more or less attempts at deciphering them, more than one savant seeing 
traces of Semitic origin. In 1875, a rubbing procured from the stone was 
placed in my hands for investigation. Since that time I have carefully 
considered the circumstances of the case, and have become ultimately sat- 
isfied of its bona-fide nature, that the inscription was neither a modern 
fraud nor the work of the wayward playfulness of the leisure hours of the 
sportive red-skin. Having become imbued with a belief that no deception 
was intended, or practiced, I entered upon the study of the markings with 
a mind totally and entirely free from prejudice ; so far from believing that 
the inscription was a relic of the pre-Columbian discovery of America, I 
had never given any credence te that theory. I therefore approached the 
subject entirely unbiassed in my opinion, in fact, somewhat prejudiced 
against the authenticity of any inscription on this continent, purporting to 
emanate from the hardy and intrepid Norsemen. 
The difficulty of interpreting these markings was greatly increased on 
account of the nature of the material on which the rubbing had been taken, 
and the fact that in the Runic alphabets the letters frequently have many 
varying values and forms. But like as in a kaleidoscope, word after word 
appeared in disjointed forms, and each was in turn rejected until at last an 
intelligible word came forth, followed by another and another, until a reat 
sentence with a meaning stood forth to my astonished gaze: Larkussen 
men varu, Hako’s son addressed the men. 
Upon examining further, I found that in the expedition} of Thorfinn 
Karlfsefne, in 1007, the name of Haki occurs among those who accom- 
panied him. I confess that I was staggered by the remarkable coincidence 
and began to waver, and the finishing touches were placed to my unbelief 
when I observed the map, and saw how short the distance was from 
Iceland to Greenland, compared with the stretch of water from Norway 
to Iceland. It seemed more than probable that the fearless race that actu- 
ally did cross the latter expanse of ocean, were not likely to be deterred 
*The squeeze of the inscription was made by Mr. 'T. B. Flint, Barrister at 
Law, of Yarmouth, N. S., and photographed by Mr. E. B. Harden, of Philadel- 
phia. 
+ On this voyage “they came to a place where a firth penetrated tar into the 
country. Off the mouth of it was an island, past which there ran strong cur- 
rents, which was also the case farther up the firth.’—Antiq. Americans, p, 
xxxi, Hafnive 1887. 
