BOOK I. OF DISCOVERIES IN THE WEST UNTIL 1519. CHAPTER I. Of the alleged discovery of America by the Northmen in the eleventh, by the Welch in the twelfth, and by Nicholas and Antonio Zeno in the fourteenth century. Many elaborate dissertations have been written to prove that discoveries were made on the northern coast of America before the era of Columbus. The following is extracted from the second chapter of Mr. Wheaton’s History of the Northmen:* “ There was formerly, say the ancient Sagas, a man named Herjolf, who was descended from Ingolf, the first settler of Iceland. This man navigated from one country to another with his son Bjarne, and generally spent the winters in Norway. It happened once on a time that they were separated from each other, and Bjarne sought his fa ther in Norway, but not finding him there, he learnt that he was gone to the newly discovered country of Greenland. * “ History of the Northmen or Danes rary member of the Scandinavian and Ice- and Normans from the earliest times to landic literary societies at Copenhagen,” the conquest of England by William of published at Philadelphia in 1831. Normandy. By Henry Wheaton, hono-
