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I of the 'Original Narrative of Early American History', edited by J. F. Jameson; Fridtjof Nansen's 'In Northern Mists'; and John Fiske's 'The Discovery of America'. A number of general histories have chapters bearing on pre-Columbian discovery; the most accessible of these are: Justin Winsor's 'Narrative and Critical History of America'; Charlevoix's 'Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France' , translated with notes by J. G. Shea ; Henry Harrisse's 'Discovery of North America'; and the 'Conquest of Canada', by the author of 'Hochelaga'.
This is a source of valuable information which was long unknown and unexplored, and of which we owe the revelation to the learned Dane, C. C. Rafn, who has furnished us with authentic facts of the greatest interest bearing on the pre-Columbian discovery of America. Norway was poor and encumbered with population.
Their processes of weaving were exactly the same then as they are today, there being but slight difference between the methods followed before the advent of the whites and afterward. Hence, in a study of the Indian blanket, as it is made today, we are approximately nearly to the pure aboriginal method of pre-Columbian times.
Associated with their supposed arrival and sojourn on the coast of what is now New England, about A.D. 1000, the "Round Tower" or "Old Stone Mill" at Newport, R.I., the mysterious inscription on the "Dighton Rock" in Massachusetts, and the "Skeleton in Armor" dug up at Fall River, Mass., and made the subject of a ballad by Longfellow, have figured prominently in the discussion of this pre-Columbian discovery.
For an account of the pre-Columbian discoveries see Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. His course led first to the Canary Islands, where he turned and went directly westward. The earth was not then generally believed to be round.
And his unshakable faith in his idea and in his purpose constitutes the most heroic aspect of his first voyage. Of recent years great interest and much historical discussion have been aroused in connection with real or imagined pre-Columbian discoveries of America, especially with the discovery by the Northmen.
In that pre-Columbian time, before the advent of white men, all the Indian tribes of North America gathered on winter nights by the shores of the seas where the tides beat in solemn rhythm, by the shores of the great lakes where the waves dashed against frozen beaches, and by the banks of the rivers flowing ever in solemn mystery each in its own temple of illumined space and listened to the story of its own supreme gods, the ancients of time.
But I have since found that it is so widely spread, and is told in so many different forms, and is so deeply connected with tribal traditions and totems, that there is now no doubt in my mind that it is at least pre-Columbian. Another and a very curious version of this story was obtained by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown, who has been the chief discoverer of curious Indian lore among the Passamaquoddies.
REFERENCES: Babcock: Early Norse Visits to North America, Smithsonian Publication 2138 ; Baring-Gould: Curious Myths of the Middle Ages; Beauvois: The Discovery of the New World by the Irish; Cantwell: Pre-Columbian Discoveries of America; Daly: The Legend of St. Brandan, Celtic Review, vol. I, A Sequel to the Voyage of St. By REV. P.S. DINNEEN, M.A., R.U.I.
Even in the case of fruits, such as the grape, which have American counterparts, the varieties actually cultivated were brought from Europe. Wheat and barley, the chief foodstuffs for which California and similar subtropical regions are noted, were unknown in the New World before the coming of the white man. In pre-Columbian America corn was the only cultivated cereal.
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