CHAPTER I.

DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION.

The Visits of the Northmen to the New World--The Indians and Mound
Builders--Christopher Columbus--His Discovery of America--Amerigo
Vespucci--John Cabot--_Spanish Explorers_--Balboa--His Discovery of the
Pacific--Magellan--Ponce de Leon--De Narvaez--De Soto--Menendez--_French
Explorers_--Verrazzani--Cartier--Ribault--Laudonniere--Champlain--La
Salle--_English Explorers_--Sir Hugh Willoughby--Martin Frobisher--Sir
Humphrey Gilbert--Sir Walter Raleigh--The Lost Colony--_Dutch
Explorer_--Henry Hudson.

THE NORTHMEN.

It has been established beyond question that the first white visitors to
the New World were Northmen, as the inhabitants of Norway and Sweden
were called. They were bold and hardy sailors, who ventured further out
upon the unknown sea than any other people. It was about the year 1000
that Biorn, who was driven far from his course by a tempest, sighted the
northern part of the continent. Other adventurers followed him and
planted a few settlements, which, however, lasted but a few years.
Snorri, son of one of these settlers, was the first child born of
European parents on this side of the Atlantic. Soon all traces of these
early discoverers vanished, and the New World lay slumbering in
loneliness for nearly five hundred years.

[Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI.]

THE MOUND BUILDERS.

Nevertheless, the country was peopled with savages, who lived by hunting
and fishing and were scattered over the vast area from the Pacific to
the Atlantic and from the Arctic zone to the southernmost point of South
America. No one knows where these people came from; but it is probable
that at a remote period they crossed Bering Strait, from Asia, which was
the birthplace of man, and gradually spread over the continents to the
south. There are found scattered over many parts of our country immense
mounds of earth, which were the work of the Mound Builders. These people
were long believed to have been a race that preceded the Indians, and
were distinct from them, but the best authorities now agree that they
were the Indians themselves, who constructed these enormous
burial-places and were engaged in the work as late as the fifteenth
century. It is strange that they attained a fair degree of civilization.
They builded cities, wove cotton, labored in the fields, worked gold,
silver, and copper, and formed regular governments, only to give way in
time to the barbarism of their des