to the description in the Saga, and near here we should look for
Vinland, leaving the southern shores until later.
Vinland, which was discovered by Leif Erikson, is only described as
_Vinland_ in the Flat Island Book. This account states that Leif
Erikson's party "came to a certain island which lay north of the
land." That Leif Erikson should have thought that Cape Cod was an
island is obvious, because it is impossible from the cape to see the
southern shore of Massachusetts Bay twenty miles away. There is no
need to explain why he also believed it to lie north of the land, as
no one and final answer can be given, although several can be easily
suggested; that water and land again lay to the west is clearly stated
in all three accounts.
Afterward "they sailed into that sound which lay between the island
and the promontory which jutted northward from the land; they steered
in westward past the promontory. There was much shallow water at ebb
tide, and then their ship stood up and then it was far to look to the
sea from their ship." Across the water which lies between Cape Cod and
the mainland is Rocky Point, a high and therefore noticeable
promontory jutting northward from the land. Past this one can only
continue westering to the north, and thence we must now look along the
land to find the place where, in the words of the Flat Island Book, "a
certain river flowed out of a certain lake," having, as was said
before, great shallows at its mouth at ebb tide, whence it was far to
look to the ocean.
Following round the inner coast of Cape Cod, we pass Plymouth and on
to Boston before we find in the Charles River and Boston Back Bay a
river flowing through a lake into the sea, where great shallows at its
mouth are a conspicuous feature and it is far to look to the ocean.
At this point we may add one more feature to the description of Keel
Cape--that it appears to be an island when approached from the north.
Now we can continue our search down the North Atlantic coast, noting
that Sandy Hook is not scored with bays at the south, and that Cape
Henlopen and Cape Henry could not have been mistaken for islands.[12]
[Footnote 12: Chart of North Atlantic, No. 98. Norie & Wilson,
London.]
There is one event described in all three versions of the Vinland
story--the battle with the natives. According to the Flat Island Book,
this battle took place in Vinland; according to the other two Sagas,
Vinland was supposed to be north of Keel Cape. But in these Sagas it
is said that this battle took place _south_ of Keel Cape, where
Karlsefni had found a river flowing through a lake into the sea.
It was this word south which led the Danish archæologist Carl
Christian Rafn to think that Vinland was in Rhode Island. Although
there is no land south of Cape Cod (with the exception of Nantucket
Island) between Cape Cod and Santo Domingo, it is only fair to look
once more at Mount Hope Bay[13] (Rafn's Vinland) to see whether it
really corresponds to the description before us. The Taunton River
flows through Mount Hope Bay to the sea, but there are no shallows
here, and the mouth of the river looks directly out, southward and not
eastward, to the open ocean. In Boston Harbor, moreover, are great
tongues of land and islands such as are described in Eric the Red's
Saga. There is perhaps cause for comment in the use of the word
"fjöll," fells or mountains (according to Vigfusson[14]), applied to
the hills about Boston, of which the highest, "Blue Hill," is seven
hundred and ten feet high. If "fells" is a correct translation, it
would be unobjectionable.
[Footnote 13: United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Chart, No.
13. Cuttyhunk to Block Island.]
[Footnote 14: Icelandic-English Dictionary. R. Cleasby. Enlarged
and completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson.]
One morning Karlsefni saw the natives in their skin boats rowing
toward his house, from the south, past a promontory. It is not
difficult to find the only promontory past which canoes could have
come from the south between the mouth of the river and Watertown, the
head of navigation. Here, then, Leif Erikson and Thorfinn Karlsefni
should have built their houses, if this history be true, because this
place corresponds with the description of Vinland, and also because we
can find no other place on the coast like it.
Having found what appears to be the site of Thorfinn Karlsefni's
houses, it is well to inquire next what the characteristic features of
the Norse houses of the Saga-time were, and what traces one might hope
to find after nearly nine hundred years.
Icelandic homesteads of that period usually consisted of a main house,
composed of three or four apartments and one or two outhouses, built
on the surface of the ground.
The walls were one and a half metres thick, and from one to one and a
half metres high, built of alternate layers of turf and stones on the
inside and on the outside, the space between being filled in with
earth. Often, however, the walls were built entirely of turf and
earth, or with only disconnected rows of stones at the base. Wood also
was sometimes used. It is stated in Thorfinn Karlsefni's Saga that
some of the trees in Vinland were "so large they were laid in a
house."
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE HOUSE OF ERIC THE RED IN ICELAND.]
A long, narrow fireplace usually extended through the middle of the
principal room, and an essential feature was the cooking fireplace,
which was about one metre square. These were either paved or
surrounded by upright stones. The plan is of the ruin of the house of
Eric the Red in Haukadalr, Iceland. It shows the different forms of
fireplace, and that the walls, which were built of turf, were one and
a half metres thick. Outhouses were often dug into the hillside, and
were sometimes walled up on the inside with stone and turf. Ruins of
such old settlements in Iceland are usually low, grass-grown ridges
and hollows.
When Professor Horsford first visited the site which his study of maps
and literature had led him to believe was Vinland, he found a few
hollows in the hillside and also some broad, low ridges on the level
ground, indicating that a building about twenty metres long by five
metres broad had once stood there. There was also a mound some
distance away which has since proved to be of modern construction.
[Illustration: PLAN OF SUPPOSED NORSE RUIN IN MASSACHUSETTS.]
No digging was done here until after Professor Horsford's death, with
the exception of a few trenches across the supposed site of Leif
Erikson's house on the other side of the creek. In 1896, during a
visit of Dr. Valtyr Gudmundsson and Mr. Thorsteinn Erlingsson, of
Copenhagen and Iceland, extensive excavations were made, leaving
practically nothing unexamined at this site.
Three kinds of earth were revealed. The upper layer was of black loam
from thirty to forty centimetres deep; below this was a yellow soil of
sand and clay thirty centimetres deep; and below that again the sand
and gravel which had remained undisturbed since the close of the
Glacial epoch.
The ruins were at the junction of the black and yellow earth.
Throughout the black loam to the bottom, wherever we dug, within or
away from the ruins, were scattered fragments of china, glass, glazed
pottery, nails, pipestems, broken bricks, etc., all belonging to the
period of the occupation of this region by the English. None of these
were found in places where their presence would show that they
belonged to or preceded these ruins. In the paved pathway, which will
be described later, a few pieces of brick lie between the stones, but
not deeper than similar fragments of brick were found in the
undisturbed earth near by, apparently trodden in by the cattle which
have been pastured there for years. There were also objects of
aboriginal manufacture, such as stone implements, pottery, pieces of
flint, etc. Occasionally, at different levels, remains of fires were
found, some of which were merely thin layers of charcoal and ashes.
There were, however, two well-built fireplaces, in good condition,
entirely unlike each other. One of these was an Indian clambake,
neatly paved and piled with ashes and unopened clam shells. This lay
sixty-three centimetres below the sod. The photograph is not of this
fireplace, but is a good example of all Indian fireplaces or clambakes
in Massachusetts.
[Illustration: AN INDIAN FIREPLACE IN MASSACHUSETTS.]
[Illustration: ICELANDIC FIREPLACE IN SUPPOSED NORSE RUIN IN
MASSACHUSETTS.]
The second fireplace, which was about one metre square, surrounded by
upright stones at the four corners and filled with oak charcoal, but
no ashes, was the distinctive feature of this ruin, and resembled the
cooking fireplaces of the Icelanders. The absence of ashes has been
accounted for by absorption in the soft clay soil. Ashes often
disappear in this way, but can be detected with acids.
Although the outline of the walls of the long house can only be
suggested, the few stones which were found at the base of the old
walls were placed about a metre and a half apart, as in the walls of
the Saga-time. This, so far as is known, is peculiar to that period
and race. Iroquois long houses were constructed for communal use, and
were usually from one hundred to three hundred feet long. The chief
traces left are fire rows and kitchen middens. They are not known to
have used stone foundations, nor to have made any attempt at
regularity of outline. The drawing shows the method of construction of
these long houses, which were built only by the Indians of the
Iroquois tribe.
Depressions which appeared to be the sites of old huts were in the
hillside back of the terrace on which the long house stood, but the
roadway in front had apparently destroyed all but one of these, and
had also carried away the front wall of this.
[Illustration: EAST WALL OF A SUPPOSED NORSE RUIN IN MASSACHUSETTS,
SHOWING LAYERS OF TURF BETWEEN THE STONES.]
[Illustration: WEST WALL OF A SUPPOSED NORSE RUIN IN MASSACHUSETTS,
SHOWING LAYERS OF TURF BETWEEN THE STONES.]
This hut was four metres across the front, and may have been five
metres deep. When the sod, stones, and the clearings, which had been
thrown in from the cultivated field above, were all removed, the
remains of two side walls were found, supported and protected by the
upper portions of these same walls which had slipped down from above
and lay close to them, forming a compact mass of earth and stones.
None of the stones in this wall were in contact with each other, being
separated by two or three inches of dark earth such as results from
the decay of vegetable matter. There was no fireplace. The manner of
constructing these walls was the counterpart of Icelandic work. I
shall now show you how this differs from post-Columbian cellars.
[Illustration: ANCIENT WALL IN ICELAND, SHOWING LAYERS OF TURF BETWEEN
THE STONES.]
This is a photograph of a ruin in the Thjór's River Valley, in
Iceland. It shows the sod between the stones closely packed but
distinct. The stones in our early English and French cellars
practically touch each other, as in the old cellar in Fort William
Henry, in Maine. Sometimes broken stones fill the interstices, as in
another example of stonework at Fort William Henry. Mortar has been
used here more or less since the beginning of the seventeenth century.
[Illustration: OLD WALL IN A CELLAR IN FORT WILLIAM HENRY, MAINE.]
[Illustration: OLD WALL AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY, MAINE.]
Although European or post-Columbian walls and cellars differ
considerably among themselves, it is within certain limits.
Post-Columbian walls, or foundation walls when built on the surface of
the ground, were practically homogeneous in character, the French only
attaining to one metre in thickness, whereas Icelandic walls were
disposed in three distinct parts, the inner and outer sides being
constructed in layers and the space between being filled in with
closely packed earth, while they were never less than a metre and a
half thick.
Icelandic outhouses when dug into a hillside dispensed with the triple
wall at the back and on the sides, and thus when stone-faced partially
resemble our cellars. But even then they still retain one
characteristic feature, in their alternate layers of turf and stone.
[Illustration: SUPPOSED NORSE PATHWAY IN MASSACHUSETTS.]
[Illustration: SOUTHERN TURN OF SUPPOSED NORSE PATHWAY.]
While this hut was being dug out, our attention was called to stones
protruding through the turf a short distance away and nearer to the
water. When the earth was cleared away, it proved to be a rude
stone-laid pathway leading along the margin of the old creek to the
river. Here at the landing place a similar pathway branched away in
another direction, stopping suddenly a few metres south of the
supposed house of Thorfinn Karlsefni. This pathway is called in
Iceland a _sjávar-gata_, or path to the sea. Ancient pavings have been
found at Fort William Henry, near Pemaquid, Maine. They are, however,
similar to many street pavements still to be found in our eastern
cities. There is also a remarkable paved gutter at the Lewis Farm, in
Maine, which has long interested historians. But none of these
resemble the _sjávar-gata_ in its peculiar construction, especially
where it broadens and divides with a wide margin of pebbles on one
side and small heaps of stones on the other.
[Illustration: A PAVEMENT AT FORT WILLIAM HENRY, MAINE.]
[Illustration: A PAVEMENT AT PEMAQUID, MAINE.]
This map was made for Professor Horsford about ten years ago. It shows
the site of the long house, in which the Icelandic fireplace was
found, and the cot, in which Icelandic walls were found. The paved
path ran along the shore in front. Professor Horsford fixed
Thorfinn's landing place a short distance south of this, on solid
ground. Geologists are unable to say how long ago the salt marshes
were formed. They are on Winthrop's map of 1634, but the _sjávar-gata_
could hardly have been accessible as a landing place after their
formation.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE SUPPOSED NORSE RUIN IN CAMBRIDGE,
MASSACHUSETTS.]
In summary, it may be said that at the only point of land on the coast
of North America which we have found to correspond with the
description of the site of Thorfinn Karlsefni's houses, ruins have
been dug out which bear peculiar features characteristic of the period
in Iceland known as the Saga-time, and differing in certain essential
features from the handiwork of all the native races of North America,
and, as far as is known at present, from all other races in Europe or
in America in post-Columbian days.
_Extracts from the Reports of Dr. Gudmundsson and Mr. Erlingsson._
The following extracts, from reports by Dr. Gudmundsson and Mr.
Erlingsson, refer to the ruins described in the preceding paper.
The plan for these researches was first to compare the aforesaid
ruins with the work of the native races supposed to have
inhabited or visited these shores, next with that of the Norsemen
of the eleventh century, and later, if necessary, with the
earliest English, French, Spanish, and Dutch ruins on these
shores. Dr. Gudmundsson and Mr. Erlingsson noted the points of
resemblance between these and Icelandic ruins, and in their
reports by request wrote everything they could think of in
opposition to, as well as in favor of, their being of Norse
origin.
When these gentlemen left Cambridge the characteristic features
of the early post-Columbian ruins on this coast had not been
ascertained, and these researches were not finished
satisfactorily until a year and a half after the Icelanders
returned to Europe.
_From Dr. Gudmundsson's Report._
The next place into which we dug was a depression or hollow in
the hillside in a northerly direction from the above-mentioned
place. Here we found unquestionable remains of a house which had
been dug into the hillside, with walls constructed of stones, and
layers of earth between the single rows of stones. The foundation
and the lower parts of the two side walls were solid and well
preserved, but the whole back wall, with the exception of a
single row (the foundation), had fallen down. The stones from
this and the upper parts of the side walls covered the whole
bottom, so that they at the first glance seemed to form a
pavement. When carefully examined, it was evident, however, that
most of the stones which covered the bottom belonged to the
walls, though some might have rolled down from the hill above the
house. Thus it could clearly be seen how some of the stones had
fallen down from the walls and some were just sliding down,
without having as yet reached to the bottom, as some stones
underneath had hindered them from gliding farther. The front wall
of the house was wanting, and must either have been of wood
or--which seems most likely--have been spoiled when the road
which runs close past the house was made. When the bottom was
cleared of the stones which had fallen in it proved to consist of
a level black floor.
The construction and situation of this house are _quite_
Scandinavian, built in the same way as houses in Iceland and
Greenland. I would therefore not have had the least hesitation to
declare it to be a ruin of a house built by Scandinavians in the
pre-Columbian period if between and under the stones which
covered the bottom we had not found some pieces of glazed pottery
and bricks, of which some small pieces were found trodden down
even into the floor itself. This seems to indicate that the house
must be post-Columbian, or at least have been occupied by the
first English or French colonists. As in the meantime several
American scholars, with whom I have had an opportunity to discuss
this matter, positively declare that the post-Columbian colonists
never would have built such walls of stones without mortar, and
it must be regarded as _quite_ certain that Indian people could
not have built it, there seems to be no other explanation
possible than that this ruin must be Scandinavian, and, having
been found by some of the first post-Columbian colonists (e. g.,
some fishermen), had been repaired and occupied by them for a
shorter or longer time. If it can be proved that such a building
as this could not have been built by the post-Columbian colonists
nor by Indians, it can hardly be anything else than Scandinavian.
This, however, must be left to American scholars, who have
sufficient knowledge in these matters. But so long as this is not
proved, the pieces of pottery and bricks which were found in it
rather seem to speak for its post-Columbian origin, as those
pieces must have been there when the house fell down, and such a
house as this built in the beginning of the eleventh century
could not have stood five hundred years before its roof and the
upper parts of the walls fell down.
On the other side of the road we found an end of an old path
paved with small stones, running from the house in the hillside
along the edge of the old river bank down to a kind of promontory
which in olden time, when the water stood much higher than it now
does, seems to have served as a landing place. In the middle of
this path, which was from about six to ten inches under the
surface, was a hollow as trodden down by the feet of men and
(perhaps) horses. This path is very like Icelandic paths, such as
may still be found in many places in Iceland. But as we in some
places in this path found some bricks between the stones which
formed its pavement, it must be regarded as doubtful whether it
is Scandinavian. The bricks seem rather to speak for a
post-Columbian origin, though the whole path is so primitive that
it hardly can be suggested that so advanced a people as the first
post-Columbian colonists should have made such a path. To settle
the question whether it could belong to those colonists must be
left to American scholars. This path seems, at any rate, to have
been made by the same people who built the house in the hillside,
so either both of them must be regarded as post-Columbian or they
both are Scandinavian. Another path runs from this landing place
in a westerly direction along the old river bank, where it stops
very abruptly on a certain spot a very short distance east of the
supposed "Thorfinn's house." As I could not find any other reason
for its stopping on this spot than that near it stood a building,
I examined the river bank beside it, and here I found the earth,
about eight inches under the surface, mixed with charcoal, which
could indicate that some refuse from a house had been thrown
there. This seems to lead to the conclusion that there at the end
of this path really has stood a building, of which we could not
now expect to find any traces, or even a building constructed of
turf only (turf walls), which also might have wholly disappeared,
as earth walls on an elevated ground like this perhaps might have
blown away.
The result of these researches is briefly, according to my
opinion, this: As far as concerns the construction, both the
house in the hillside and the two paths, or the two branches of
the path, could be of Scandinavian origin, but I am not so well
acquainted with the life and customs of the first post-Columbian
colonists as to be able to decide whether they could not have
been made by them. This, therefore, must be left to American
scholars.
Very respectfully yours,
VALTYR GUDMUNDSSON.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., _July 16, 1896_.
_From Mr. Erlingsson's Report._
It is not uncommon in Iceland that houses, especially small
outhouses, are dug into small hills, hillsides, or sloping
ground, just as this house is. It is, in fact, built very like
what I have seen in outhouses in many places in Iceland, and what
is left of the walls here nobody could distinguish from Icelandic
walls. The size and the whole form is also very like an outhouse,
but as most frequently in outhouses either all the four walls are
made of stones or none of them, it would seem strange that one of
the walls here is completely wanting. But those stones which
were used in it could have been used in the road which has been
made past the house, or, besides, it is possible that the front
wall of the house has been a wooden one, and, although this is
very rare in outhouses certainly, yet it must be taken into
consideration that here it is much easier to procure wood than in
Iceland. The whole form, the method, and the condition of the
house itself seemed like nothing else than that it was built by
Icelandic hands, although some of the stones seem to be rather
small, but, as pieces of pottery and bricks have been found
beneath the stones which had fallen down from the walls and on
the floor itself, it seems to prove sufficiently that the house
can not belong to the old Icelandic period; but as nobody has
expected such a house here, the discovery is very remarkable.
This path is so like paths in Iceland, for which there have been
gathered stones and which later on have been trodden down by the
feet of horses and men, that I would not have hesitated to
declare that it might be Scandinavian if in it there had not been
found bricks beside the other stones, which seems to indicate
that the path must belong to the same period as the house which
was dug into the hill. This discovery must therefore, too, be
regarded as very remarkable....
Respectfully,
THORSTEINN ERLINGSSON.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., _July 12, 1896_.
THE EDUCATION OF THE NEMINIST.
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN,
PRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY.
The meeting of the Astral Club of Alcalde, on September 10, 1899, was
rendered memorable by the return, from a month's absence in the East,
of the secretary of the club, Miss Corintha Jones, D. N. N. N. Her
presence had been sorely missed at the August meeting (though I say it
who should not), for it is not often that one of our devoted band is
absent from his post.