Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1882-09-23
AMERICAN DISCOVERY.
The Question OF the Landing Place OF
the NOrthmen.

7. W. Higgneon, in Harper's Magazine.
There are scarcely two interpreters who pre-
cisely agree as to the places visited by the
Mortimer, and those who are surest i'm their
opinions are usually those who live farthest
from the points described. Professor Rain
found Vinland along the coast of New England;
Professor Rask, his contemporary, found it In
Nova Scotia Newfoundland, or Labrador.
The latter urged, with much reason, that 1t
was far easier to discover wild grapes In Nova
Scotia than Eskimo in what is now Rhode
Island, and that the whole story Of the terror
of the Skraelings before the bull indicates an
island people like those Of Newfoundland or
Prince Edward Island, and certainly not the
New England Indians who were familiar with
the moose and might have seen the buffalo.
He might also have added, what was first
pointed out by Mr.. j. Elliott Cabot that the
repeated voyages from Greenland to Vinland.
and the perfect facility with which successive
explorers found the newly discovered region,
indicate some spot much nearer Greenland than
Mount Hope Bay, which would have required
600 miles of intricate and dangerous coast navi-
CATION, without chart or compass in order to
reach it. Again Rain finds 1t easy to place the
site OF Leif's booths at Bristol, Rhode Island;
and NJ. Gravier, Frenchman, writing so lately
as 1874, has not a doubt upon the SUBJ
ject. But sail from Fall River to Newport.
or indeed q mere study of the map, will show
any dispassionate man that the description
given by the sagas has hardly anything in COM
mon with the Rhode Island locality. The sagas
describe an inland lake communicating with the
sea by a shallow river only accessible at high
tide, whereas Mount Hope bay is broad eX-
panse Of salt water opening into the still wider
gulf Of Narragansett bay, and communicating
with the sea by passage wide and deep enough
for the navies of the world to enter. Even sup
posing the Mortimer to have found their way in
through what is called the Seaconnet passage,
the description does not apply much better to
that; and if it did. these hardy sailors must have
recognized. the moment they reached the bay
itself, that they had come In back door. not at
the front; and the main access to the ocean must
have instantly revealed itself. 1t suffices to
say that the whole Interpretation, which seemed
so easy to transatlantic writers, is utterly re-
jected by Professor Diman, who was born and
bred in Bristol. and lived all his life within easy
reach of it. Having lived myself for fourteen
years in that region, may venture modestly to
endorse his conclusions; and they have the
weightier endorsement of Professor Henry
Mitchell. of the coast survey, in a manuscript
report which lies before me. And the same
vagueness ond Indebtedness mark ali the de-
scriptiOns Of the Mortimer. Nothing is more
difficult than to depict In words with any ac-
curacy In an unscientifc age the features of Ia
low and monotOnOus seashore; and this with
the changes undergone by the coast of southern
New England during 900 years, think renders
the identification Of any spot visited by the
Mortimer practically impossible.