ards,[5] is a proof
of the national credulity of men, who are predetermined to find the
analogies which they ardently seek.

[5] Vide Stoddart's Louisiana.

Italy has likewise a claim to the discovery of this continent, prior to
the voyages of Columbus. This claim is made by an ancient family of the
highest rank in the city of Venice--once the mistress of the commerce
of the world. The voyages of the two Zenos, over the northern seas, in
the 14th century, extending to Greenland, appear to be well attested by
the archives of that ancient city. The episode of Estotiland, which is
apparently used as a synonyme for Vinland, has been generally deemed
apocryphal, or of a date posterior to the other incidents described. To
examine and set in order both the true and the intercalated parts of
these curious ancient voyages, would involve no little degree of
research, but would prove, if well executed, a useful and acceptable
service to historical letters.

There is another period--we allude to the Horitic element--in the
obscurity of the early history of the continent, which may be here
mentioned, but from the diversity of the sub-elements which enter into
it, some hesitancy exists in giving it a name. In order to secure the
purposes of generalization, and include every element of which it is
composed, it may be called, provisionally, the MEDITERRANEAN PERIOD. It
is the earliest and most obscure of the whole, relying, as it does,
almost exclusively upon passages of the imaginative literature of
Greece. Yet it is a subject eminently worthy of the pen of original
investigation. It includes the consideration of the early maritime
power of the Phoenicians, the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, and other
celebrated nations and cities who, long before the Christian era, drew
the attention and governed the destinies of the world. It was in this
quarter of the globe, forming, as it does, the cementing point between
Europe and Asia, that an alphabet arose at a very early day, and prior
to that of Greece or Rome, which consisted almost exclusively of
straight or angular marks. From its use it has sometimes been called
the Rock Alphabet. It has its equivalents in the more full and exact
Hebrew and Greek characters, so far as the old alphabet extended. It
had, as these changes progressed and the family of man spread, the
various names of Phoenician, Ostic, Etruscan, Punic, ancient Greek and
Gallic, Celtiberic, Runic, Druidical and other