I. NORSE DISCOVERIES.

THE earliest exploration of the region now known as New England, is generally attributed to the navigators of England and Southern Europe, who, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, examined its coast. As a matter of fact, however, the earliest European discoveries in New England, are connected with a period almost as near the beginning of the Christian era as to the present, and the mind, to contemplate them, must bridge the gulf of nearly nine hundred years. It seems especially fitting that New England, the birthplace of hardy mariners, whose vessels for more than a century have ploughed the most distant seas, should have been primarily discovered by a race of sea-kings, the Norsemen of Scandinavia, renowned in all Europe for their feats of navigation. Many still regard the tales of the Icelandic sagas as fables, or at the best as traditions, the remoteness of whose origin renders them unworthy of credence; but, to those who have made a careful study of Norse literature, the discovery of New England by the Northmen is a fact as well established and unquestionable, as that Columbus discovered Guanahani, or that the Cabots, in the time of Henry VII. of England, sighted the shores of Labrador. The facts upon which this belief rests are obtained from the "Icelandic Annals" - old records of Iceland — which have, of late years, been examined very critically by careful investigators of history. Sir John Richardson, a learned English writer, says of them, in his work entitled "The Polar Regions," published in Edinburgh in 1861: "The authenticity of the Icelandic manuscript seems to be fully established," and a recent American writer says: "These narratives are plain, straightforward, business-like accounts of actual voyages made by the Northmen, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, to Greenland, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Within the whole range of literature of discovery and adventure, no volumes can be found which have more abundant internal evidence of authenticity." In considering, then, the history of early explorations in

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New England, we shall devote a few paragraphs to discoveries nearly five hundred years prior to the time when Columbus approached the shores of the Western World. One of the boldest of the Northmen was Naddod, who, on account of his spirit of adventure and success in commercial enterprise, was called the sea-king. Ten centuries since, this adventurer, while on one of his daring voyages, was driven by storms far to the westward, and discovered Iceland. Nearly a score of years passed away, and the island had been peopled meanwhile by a colony of Danes. Another vessel was borne by a storm four hundred miles to the west of Iceland, and in this accidental way Greenland was reached, and the way opened for colonization. A few years after this, another Northman named Bjarne, while attempting a voyage to Greenland, was carried by a north wind far to the south of his intended course. The gale continued with terrible. force for many days, and when the storm subsided and the sun appeared, a long line of sandy shore was seen in the distant horizon. It is believed that this was either the island of Nantucket, or the eastern shore of Cape Cod. From this point Bjarne sailed backward along the coast until at last he arrived at Greenland. Again, some four years after, probably in the year 1000, Lief Erikson, or Lief, son of Erik the Red, sailed in Bjarne's ship, on an exploring expedition. Touching at Hellerland (now Newfoundland) and Markland (Nova Scotia), he steered to the south-west for the purpose of exploring the land that had been seen by Bjarne. The shores of Cape Cod were first descried, and after cruising along its eastern coast and passing several leagues to the west, they entered a large bay and cast anchor near its pleasant shores. The surrounding country was so delightful, the fruit so abundant, and the climate so mild, that it was decided to spend the winter there. In the valleys near the shore were the sassafras and other fragrant trees, about many of which luxuriant grapevines twined, loaded with clusters of delicious fruit. They gave the region the appropriate name of Vinland, and began immediate preparations to spend the winter in that locality. Tents were erected, and a rude house constructed not far probably from the present site of Fall River. They returned to Greenland in the spring, where the news of their dis