and the phonetic portion might, it seemed, be translated in the following manner:-131 MEN OF THE NORTH HAVE OCCUPIED THIS COUNTRY-WITH THORFINN. I should add, however, that Mr. Wittlesey does not admit the existence of a single alphabetical inscription in the United States. Yet we must not suppose that the opinion of the American antiquarian at all affects the authenticity of the Sagas which relate the history of Thorfinn.

I cannot here repeat all the adventures of Thorvard and Freydisa, of Ari Marson, Bjorn Asbrandson, Gudleif and Hervador but I must remark, in reference to the latter, that, through the indications contained in the Skalholt Saga, the American savants have been able to find upon the shores of the Potomac the tomb of a woman who fell by the arrows of the Skrellings in 1051.

VII. The colonies founded in Greenland by Erick and his successors multiplied rapidly; both the east and west coasts were peopled. These two centres bore the names of Osterbygd and Vesterbygd. From the documents consulted by M. F. Lacroix, it appears that the former possessed a cathedral, eleven churches, three or four monasteries, two towns called Garda and Alba, and 190 Gaards or Norwegian villages; in the second, there were four churches and 90 or 110 gaards. These figures clearly indicate a considerable population. This is still more strongly proved by the fact, that as early as 1121, an Irishman, Erick-Upsi, was created Bishop of Greenland, and had eighteen successors. Vinland was in the jurisdiction of this diocese. The tithes of this country figured among the revenues of the Church in the fourteenth century, and were paid in kind.

This prosperity, and the regular relations between Europe, Greenland, and Vinland seem to have lasted till towards the middle of the fourteenth century. About this time the Skrellings attacked Vesterbygd; the succour sent by the other settlements arrived too late, and the western colony was destroyed. Osterbygd had a much longer existence. In 1418 it still paid to the Holy See as tithes and Peter's

Pence 3600 pounds of walrus' tusks. At a period anterior to this epoch, however, Queen Margaret, sovereign of the Scandinavian dominions, impelled by motives which have been differently interpreted, had interdicted all commerce with the Greenland colonies. Shortly afterwards fleets of pirates, springing from some unknown quarter, came down upon and pillaged them; the temperature of both land and sea gradually fell; voyages became more and more difficult, and, at last, ceased altogether. Thus, when in 1721, the Norwegian Pastor, Hans Eggede, led to those frozen lands the first modern colony, he found nothing but ruins, and not single descendant of Erick and Thorfinn. What had become of them?

A letter addressed to Pope Nicholas V., quoted by M. Lacroix, throws some light upon their fate. It is dated 1448, and informs us that, thirty years previously, some strangers coming from the American coasts had pillaged the colony, and massacred or carried into slavery the greater number of the inhabitants of both sexes. A great number had, however, returned to their homes, and asked for help.

It is hardly possible to avoid referring to the latter, the white population, tall, and with fair hair, which Captain Graa met with on the east coast of Greenland, during his expedition in search of Osterbygd. Notwithstanding their adoption of the Esquimaux language, they certainly did not belong to their race.

But were all the descendants of the bold navigators who had discovered America content to live, like the Skrellings. by the side of ruins which recalled the relative grandeur of their fathers? This hypothesis appears to me inadmissible. It seems evident to me, that the greater number of the survivors must have emigrated and sought refuge in Vinland, of the existence of which they were aware. Perhaps they were repulsed by the mixed population of Scandinavians and Esquimaux, who seem very early to have come into existence, and who were, perhaps, the invaders mentioned in the letter quoted by M. Lacroix; perhaps, again, they

may have encountered warlike and inhospitable tribes, like those mentioned in the Saga of Gudleif. But the Norwegians would then only have pushed on further, till they met with some hospitable shore where they could settle.

VIII. However this may be, the history of Scandinavian voyages is sufficient to explain the appearance of the white type, even of the fair type, in the midst of American populations. I do not hesitate to refer to this Aryan stock, the white Esquimaux of Charlevoix, the fair-haired men of Pierre Martyr, the fair men spoken of in some Mexican traditions, the White Savage Chief whom the Spaniards met with in their Cibola expedition . . . etc.

Besides, the discovery and the repeated invasions of the American coasts by the Scandinavians show the estimation in which we ought to hold the pretended impossibility of the peopling of America. Here, we have no longer the double pirogues of the Polynesians, carrying 150 warriors; it was in boats manned by thirty or forty men that Leif and Thorwald faced the Greenland seas, reached, and returned from Vinland. In the presence of such facts, can we regard our improved method of navigation as indispensable to long sea voyages?

Modern civilization has placed in our hands an immense power of action unknown to our ancestors. It enables us to accomplish works which they would have thought could only be expected from supernatural powers. Science has placed in our hands the magic ring, and we have become so used to employing it for the satisfaction of our smallest wants, that it seems to us impossible to do without it. We too often forget the resources which man possesses in himself, and which form part of his original nature. Thus, we regard less advanced, less learned races as incapable of accomplishing that which we should not dare to undertake without the aid which we have been able to create for ourselves.

We have just seen how fully the history of the Polynesians and Scandinavians contradicts these false ideas, and how they justify the words of Lyell :-"Supposing the human genus

were to disappear entirely, with the exception of a single family, placed either upon the Ocean of the New Continent, in Australia, or upon some coral island of the Pacific Ocean, we may be sure that its descendants would, in the course of ages, succeed in invading the whole earth, although they might not have attained a higher degree of civilization than the Esquimaux or the South Sea Islandera”

BOOK VI.

ACCLIMATISATION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.

CHAPTER XIX.

INFLUENCE OF CONDITIONS OF LIFE AND RACE.

I. THE human species, springing originally from a single centre of appearance, is now universally distributed. In their innumerable travels, its representatives have encountered the widest difference of climate and the most opposite conditions of life, and now inhabit both the polar and equatorial regions. It must, therefore, have possessed the necessary aptitudes for accommodating itself to all the natural conditions of existence; in other words, it must have had the power of becoming acclimatised and naturalised in every place where we meet with it.

The possibility of man living and prospering in other regions than those in which his fathers lived, has been denied in a more or less emphatic manner by the greater number of polygenists. Without going as far as this, certain monogenists have held that a human race, when constituted for given conditions of life, was, so to speak, a prisoner to them, and could not effect a change without losing his life. Other writers have maintained precisely opposite opinions, and have held that any human group could at once become acclimatised in any given spot.

There are exaggerations and errors in all these extreme doctrines.