e meant to say that
he ran beyond it as far as the little island, just a hundred leagues
from Iceland and in latitude 71 deg., since discovered by Jan Mayen in 1611.
The rest of the paragraph is more intelligible. It is true that Iceland
lies thirty degrees farther west than Ptolemy placed Thule; and that for
a century before the discovery of the Newfoundland fisheries the English
did much fishing in the waters about Iceland, and carried wares
thither, especially from Bristol.[468] There can be no doubt that by
Frislanda Columbus means the Faeroe islands,[469] which do lie in the
latitude though not in the longitude mentioned by Ptolemy. As for the
voyage into the Jan Mayen waters in February, it would be dangerous but
by no means impossible.[470] In another letter Columbus mentions
visiting England, apparently in connection with this voyage,[471] and it
is highly probable that he went in an English ship from Bristol.

[Footnote 468: See Thorold Rogers, _The Economic Interpretation
of History_, London, 1888, pp. 103, 319.]

[Footnote 469: See above, p. 236.]

[Footnote 470: See the graphic description of a voyage in these
waters in March, 1882, in Nansen's _The First Crossing of
Greenland_, London, 1890, vol. i. pp. 149-152.]

[Footnote 471: "E vidi tutto il Levante, e tutto il Ponente,
che si dice per andare verso il Settentrione, cioe
l'Inghilterra, e ho camminato per la Guinea." _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.]

[Sidenote: The hypothesis that Columbus "must have" heard and understood
the story of the Vinland voyages.]

The object of Columbus in making these long voyages to the equator and
into the polar circle was, as he tells us, to gather observations upon
climate. From the circumstance of his having made a stop at some point
in Iceland, it was conjectured by Finn Magnusson that Columbus might
have learned something about Vinland which served to guide him to his
own enterprise or to encourage him in it. Starting from this suggestion,
it has been argued[472] that Columbus must have read the geographical
appendix to Adam of Bremen's "Ecclesiastical History;" that he must
have understood, as we now do, the reference therein made to Vinland;
that he made his voyage to Iceland in order to obtain further
information; that he there not only heard about Vinland and other
localities mentioned in the sagas, but also mentally pla