Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-03-10
WHO DISCOVERED AlEERIcAi

From the Chicago Inter Ocean

z run the lineage inter Oce4n
Numerous efforts have been made To
take from the Genoese navigator In the
Spanish service the credit OF bringing
to the knowledge OF European races =
new and unknown world. Or We maya
perhaps. put II a little more accurately
Iif We say that many efforts have been
made to show that Columbus was an.
Iticipated in his epoch making voyage.
When the rivalry between Spain and
England for the mastery Of the seas was
at its height these efforts were chieny<
a bubble, resting on the admitted facs
that Columbus never saw the North
American continent. probably died in
the delusion that he had reached ''the
Indies" instead Of finding a new world.
and the more or less apocryphal voyage
of the elder Cabot.
Later the strongest claims have been
made for Norse-lcelandic navigators.
Because. until recent years. the great
| majority Of Americana have been OF
North European. Teufonic. and even
Anglo Danish or Anglo-Norse extrac-
| audience even before the great immigra-
| tion from the Scandinavian countries
gave them the added support of a direce
ancestral interest.
canists, published In Paris. the claims
of Lief the Lucky and other alleged
Norse-lcelandic precursors OF Columbus
are comprehensively surveyed by Henri
Vignaud, an acknowledged authority on
early American exploration.
| The evidence for the claimants Is or
two kinds: First are the tales of the
| lcelandic Sagas, OF the discovery OF
Greenland from Iceland. and that thence
men went on to a country farther west
which they called 'Vineland.' and OF the
unsuccessful efforts to form settlements
there.
Then there are certain material re-
mains !ound within the modern United
States The most widely known of these
are the skeleton found near Fall River.
Mass. in 1881. and the old stone mill at
Newport, r. l., Mr. Longfellow having
made them the foundation of q stirring
ballad. But the building of the old mill
can be pretty certainly dated long after
the fourteenth century. while there Is
no evidence that 1.-The skeleton in armor'
was that of a Norseman.
RAIN and other Scandinavian arche-
ologists of the last century were quito
sure that the inscription on the Dighton
| rock on Taunton river I'm Massachusetts,
was in 'runic" characters. But the ex-
perts OF the chronological bureau at
| Washington insist that II Is native
American" of the Algonquin type.
| Then there was the tombstone found
near the. falls Of the Potomac In 1857.
rication OF a Washington lawyer named
Conan. AS for the stone dated 1862
found some miles from kensington.
Mimi, the fact that its inscription is
not in ''runc,' but in quite modern let
tiers, is evidently fatal objection.
Mr.. Vignaud concludes, after discuss
ing all the known facts. that ii may be
accepted that the Mortimer reached
Labrador. but that there is no real evil
dence that they landed in New England
or farther south. And he pertinently
| suggests that il is difficult to believe
that men who found the struggle for ex-
istence in Greenland SO hard would not
| have moved on to a more hospitable
country il they had found one.
And we may agree with Mr.. Vignaud
| that 'the discoverer of America Is he
who put the two worlds in communicA-
tion." Whatever the Mortimer did. they
| did not that The effective discoverer Of
| America was Christopher Columbus.
| With his work the course OF civilization
| took a new direction.