. A larger history of the United States of America, to the close of President Jackson's administration . t-tled in Greenland, but visited lands beyond Greenland, whichlands could only have been a part of the continent of NorthAmerica. This Mr. Bancroft himself concedes as is true that this rests on the sagas alone, and that thesewere simply oral traditions, written down perhaps two centuriesafter the events, while the oldest existing manuscripts are datedtwo centuries later still. Most of the early history of NorthernEurope, however, and of England itself, rests upon very similarau
. A larger history of the United States of America, to the close of President Jackson's administration . t-tled in Greenland, but visited lands beyond Greenland, whichlands could only have been a part of the continent of NorthAmerica. This Mr. Bancroft himself concedes as is true that this rests on the sagas alone, and that thesewere simply oral traditions, written down perhaps two centuriesafter the events, while the oldest existing manuscripts are datedtwo centuries later still. Most of the early history of NorthernEurope, however, and of England itself, rests upon very similarauthority; and there is no reason to set this kind of testimonyaside merely because itrelates to America. Butwhen we come to fix theprecise topography oftheir explorations, wehave very few data leftafter the Dighton Rockand the Newport Millare struck out of the evi-dence. We can argue nothing from their rate of sailing, for wedo not know how often they sailed all night, and how oftenthey followed the usual Norse method of anchoring at weight is now attached to the alleged astronomical cal-. HIEROGLYPHICS ON ROCK IN NEW MEXICO. THE VISIT OF THE VIKINGS. 47 dilation in the sagas, to the effect that in Vinland, on theshortest day, the sun rose at half-past seven and set at half-past four, which would show the place to have been some-where in the neighborhood of Mount Hope Bay. Closerobservation has shown that no such assertion as that heremade is to be found in the Norse narrative. The Norsemendid not divide their time into days and hours, but, like sailors,into watches. A watch included three hours, and the le-
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