Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1893 Apr 7
Contents
4 Gardiner G. Hubbard-Discoverersof America. Columbus, but as the mariners' compass was not known they rarely ventured out of sight of land. When Rome became the imperial city commerce, as well as do minion and authority, centered in Rome, and with her decline and fall shipping and commerce disappeared from the Mediterranean. Then, far away in the north on the Baltic sea, the Northmen began to sail the ocean, not for discovery or commerce but to plunder and ravage richer countries than their own. The vik ings became noted as bold rovers of the sea, pillaging every country they could reach by water. Sailing southwestward, they landed on the coast of France and made a permanent settle ment in Normandy. They coasted along the shores of France and Spain, plundering as they went; passing the Pillars of Her cules into the Mediterranean, they ravaged the coast of Italy and established colonies in southern Italy and Sicily. Sailing west ward, they conquered and colonized the eastern coast of England and Scotland, the Shetland, Orkney and Faroe islands, and from these islands, in A D 850, they sailed 300 or 400 miles northwest ward to Iceland, where they made settlements which have contin ued until our day. One of the early settlers of Iceland was driven by adverse winds to Greenland, where he was compelled to winter, returning in the spring with an account of his discovery. About 986, Eric the Red, an outlaw, fled from Iceland with a few friends to Greenland. Prevented by the icebergs from landing on the eastern coast, they sailed around cape Farewell to the western coast where they founded two small colonies near Juliansburg, which existed for four hundred years until, forgotten and neg lected by the mother country, overcome by want and hunger, they succumbed to the climate and the attacks of the Eskimo. Shortly after Eric had colonized Greenland, Bjarni, another Northman, sailing for Greenland, was driven by northeasterly winds continuing for many days far southwestward, to a land covered with dense woods. There is every reason to believe that this was America, and that Bjarni was its first discoverer. It was not the land of ice and glaciers he was seeking, so he sailed northeastward again, and in ten days reached Greenland. Leif Ericsson, one of the Norse vikings, hearing of this land of woods, about the year 1000 sailed from Greenland in search of it. Passing the barren coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland, which he called Helluland, his party reached Nova Scotia, or Markland, and sailed southward to a place where they found grapes, and hence called it Vineland. They were surprised at the
Links
Archive
1893 Apr 29
1893 Mar 20
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page
