rior of America, but from West
Siberia along the polar regions, by Wrangell Land [_v._ Journal, R, G.
S., 1865, and Arctic Geography, 1875].

There was much curiosity from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as
to the site of the lost colonies of Greenland which had so long
flourished. In 1568 and 1579 the King of Denmark sent two expeditions,
the latter in charge of an Englishman, but no traces were found. At the
beginning of the eighteenth century some light was thrown upon the
problem by a missionary called Egede, who first described the ruins and
relics observable on the west coast. By the success of his preaching
among the Greenlanders for fifteen years, assisted by other gospel
missionaries, the Moravians were induced to found their settlements in
the country, principally in the southwest.

It seems probable that in early times the climate of Iceland was milder
than it now is. Columbus, some fifteen years before his great voyage
across the Atlantic, sailed to this northern "Thule," and reports that
there was no ice. If so, it is surely possible that Greenland also may
have been greener and more attractive than during the recent centuries.
Why should it not at one time have been fully deserving of the name by
which we still know it? Some would explain the change in climatic
conditions by the closing in of icepacks. At present Greenland is buried
deep under a vast, solid ice-cap from which only a few of the highest
peaks protrude to show the position of the submerged mountains, but at
former periods, according to geologists, there were gardens and farms
flourishing under a genial climate. Others suppose that, were the ice
removed, we should see an archipelago of elevated islands.

2. _Celtic Discovery of America._--We have already glanced at the fact
that when the Norsemen first seized Iceland they found that island
inhabited by Irish Celts. These Christianized Celts made way before the
savage invaders, who did not accept the Catholic religion till about the
close of the tenth century. Sailing south, those dispossessed Irish
probably joined their brother Celts who had already long held a district
on the eastern coast of North America, which some Norse skippers called
"White Man's Land," and also _Irland-it-Mikla_ (i. e., "Mickle
Ireland"). Professor Rafn places this district on the coast of Carolina.
A learned memoir, published 1851, attempts to prove that the mysterious
"mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley wer