ANCIENT NORTHERN CHRONICLES-EARLY SCANDINAVIAN VOYAGERSDISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF ICELAND-DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF GREENLAND BY EIREK THE RED-ACCIDENTAL
DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA BY BIARNI HERIUlfson.
[THE principal authority for the following narration is found in two ancient Icelandic Manuscripts, entitled "An account of Eirek the Red, and of Greenland," and an "Account of Thorfinn Karlsefni" (the Achiever). The authenticity of these documents is indisputable, and their contents, in addition to strong internal evidence of truth, are corroborated by many allusions, in other and contemporaneous works, to the localities, the persons, and the adventures which they commemorate. The whole subject has been recently laid before the world in that admirable work, the "Antiquitates Americanæ," published by the learned "Society of the Northern Antiquarians of Copenhagen;" and its claims have been fortified by Mr. J. T. Smith and other American writers with much ingenious argument and illustration. "That America was visited early in the tenth century," says Mr. Schoolcraft, perhaps the least romantic and most fastidious of American antiquaries, "by the adventurous Northmen from Greenland, and that its geography and people continued to be known to them so late as the twelfth century, is admitted by all who have examined with attention, the various documents which have been published, during the last twelve years, by the Royal Society," &c.
The restricted intercourse of Iceland with Europe, for many centuries, prevented these interesting facts from becoming generally known; though by the intelligent nations of that island they were always considered, as now by the historical world, to be proved by unquestionable evidence. The most skeptical mind could hardly fail, on examination, of being convinced of the main truths of these narrations, by the abundance of "that internal testimony, consisting in undesigned coincidences, existing between different parts of the same