therefore nearer to that island than the latter was to Norway, whence
the Icelanders originally came. These colonies became practically
extinct in the fourteenth century, owing, it is believed, to enormous
accumulations of ice on the coast, which prevented intercommunication
between them and Iceland, and cut off their chief food supplies. They
may also have been decimated through the great pestilence called the
Black Death, which prevailed in 1349, especially in the northern
countries; while, if any remained, they are supposed to have been killed
by the Esquimos, or Skraelings, as they were then called, and who were a
far more powerful race than the Esquimos of to-day.

The foothold thus gained by the Norsemen in Greenland led to voyages
southward. Some years after the establishment of these colonies one
Bjarne Herjulfson was on one of these voyages driven by a storm far
south of Greenland and saw the coast of the main continent of North
America, somewhere, it is supposed from his description, between
Newfoundland and Nantucket. Without landing, he returned to Greenland,
whence soon thereafter, induced by his accounts, Leif, the son of Eirek
the Red, undertook the same journey with a single ship and about
thirty-five men, for the purpose of obtaining possession of the newly
discovered country. He landed probably at Nantucket Island, and settled
in the vicinity of the present Fall River, and called the country
Vinland on account of the grape-vines which grew there in profusion.

In confirmation of the claim that it was in this locality that Leif
Erickson first set foot, the Norse records are relied upon, which state
that, at the season when this discovery was made, the sun rose at 7:30
A.M. and set at 4:30 P.M. This astronomical observation would locate the
place of landing on the southern coast of New England in the vicinity
mentioned. That the Norsemen made a settlement in this country, though
only of brief duration, is a fact in support of which many learned
treatises have been written, dealing, among other things, with what are
supposed to be Icelandic inscriptions discovered in that section of the
country, and the like, a consideration of which, however, would be
beyond the scope of this writing.

Leif, the son of Eirek, or to preserve the nomenclature of the artist,
Lief Erickson, is described in the Sagas and other records as a large,
strong man, of imposing appearance. The ships in which voyages were made
by