Washington telegraph., 1856-08-20
The Northmen in America.

We copy from the Philadelphia Ledger
the following interesting article:
The controversy which ragged so long as
Ito whether America was visited by the
Scandinavians or not, before its discovery
by Columbus, has been determined finally.
aSell know, in the affirmative. So late as
the appearance of Iryings Columbus. y
the question was still an open one, and
that author felt himself even authorized to
decide in the negative But since that
period, the researches of the Danish an
tiquaries have left no doubt that the North
men landed on this continent, more than
eight hundred years ago; that they even
colonized it for time, and that something
of their blood and language, however in
considerable, must have become incorpor-
ated with the red mans race and tongue,
when the colonies were finally abandoned.
But, by all writers, these settlements were
conceded to have been confined to North
America. No one suspected that the
Scandinavians had ever penetrated, in
their adventurous voyages, to the West
Indies or to South America But, within
the last two years, this theory has been
broached on pathological grounds, and from
two distinct quarters-one, the Able de
BouTbourg, whose researches have been
made in Gualtemala; the other, Swedish
gentleman, lately resident in Brazil. The
latter, especially, asserts that the language
of the Peruvian Incas was Swedish. The
name of Inca he considers merely a cor
ruption of Inga, the founder Of the royal
Scandinavian race of the Inglinga, cele-
brated in an ancient Saga. A letter on
the subject, from the pen of Mary Hewitt,
makes a conspicuous figure in the last
London Athen@m.
These analogies in tongues, however,
are perilous things. II, as there is reason
TO believe, most of the languages in the
world had coGlmon origin, the roots OF
many words must be similar in not a few.
\ century ago, it was the fashion, on this
and other accounts, to attribute the coloni-
z ton of America to the tea tribes of Is
rael. Quite as plausible theory, we have
no doubt, could be constructed, tracing
the dominant caste, at least, in Peru, il
not Mexico, to the ancient Scandinaviaus
by the simple process of collecting, in one
imposing array, III such words, customs
and institutions al were common to the
Mortimer and the Incas, and rejecting the
ten thousand others that were dissimilar
Antiquarian research, We reget to say, has
advanced but little, since Scott. in one OF
his earliest novels, made Majoribanks dis
cover a Roman encampment in an old
ditch, till the gaberlunzie dispelled the
dream by saying he minded the diggin'
10 it." Grade theories, founded on one
sided investigations, are substituted for
that large, wide and thorough induction,
by which only can truth be attained We
have no doubt that, in the course of time,
and as the antiquities and ancient tongues
of these continents become more COM
pletely understood, an approximation at
least viii be made to unriddling the great
problem, "IVho first settled America ?"
1t is not impossible either, though scarcely
probable, that the Scandinavians will be
found to have had hand in it. But, as
yet, both the data and the careful analysis,
to solve this sphinx, are wanting. The
Bacon of this new field of discovery has
not yet arisen.