The Lost Atlantis and Other Ethnographic Studies. Sir Daniel Wilson
to associate the vine with the Rhine land, or the plains of Champagne, it sounds equally extravagant to speak of the Maritime Provinces, or of the New England States, as “Vinland the Good.” But numerous allusions of voyagers and travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries refer with commendation to the wild grapes of North America. Jacques Cartier on making his way up the St. Lawrence, in his second voyage, gave to the Isle of Orleans the name of the Isle de Bacchus, because of the many wild vines found there; though he notes that, “not being cultivated nor pruned, the grapes are neither so large nor so sweet as ours”—that is, those of France. Lescarbot, in like manner, in 1606, records the grape vine as growing at Chuakouet, or Saco, in Maine, and in the following year they are noted as abundant along the banks of the river St. John in New Brunswick.
To voyagers from Iceland or Greenland many portions of the coast of Nova Scotia would present the aspect of a region clothed with forest, and, as such, “extremely beautiful.” Deer are still abundant both there and in Newfoundland; and as for the grapes gathered by Leif Ericson, or those brought back to Thorvald by Hake and Hekia, the swift runners, at their more northern place of landing, the wild vine is well known at the present time in sheltered localities of Nova Scotia. Having therefore carefully studied the earliest maps and charts, of which reduced copies are furnished in the Mémoires, and reviewed the whole evidence with minute care, Professor Storm thus unhesitatingly states the results: “Kjalarnes, the northern extremity of Vinland, becomes Cape Breton Island, specially described as low-lying and sandy. The fiord into which the Northmen steered, on the country becoming fjorthskorit, i.e. ‘fiord-indented,’ may have been one of the bays of Guysborough, the county of Nova Scotia lying farthest to the north-east; possibly indeed Canso Bay, or some one of the bays south of it. Therefore much further to the south in Nova Scotia must we seek the mouth of the river where Karlsefn made his abortive attempt at colonisation. … The west coast of northern Vinland is characterised as a region of uninhabited forest tracks, with few open spots, a statement admirably agreeing with the topographical conditions distinguishing the west coast of Cape Breton Island, which in a modern book of travels is spoken of as ‘an unexplored and trackless land of forests and mountains.’ Hence to the south of this region search has to be made for the mouth of the streamlet where Thorvald Eriksson was killed.” Various points, accordingly, such as Salmon river, or one of the rivers flowing into Pictou harbour, are suggested as furnishing features of resemblance and inviting to further research.
Here, then, is the same problem submitted to the historical antiquaries of Nova Scotia which those of Rhode Island took up upwards of half a century ago, with unbounded zeal, and very surprising results. Nor is there a “Dighton Rock” wanting; for Nova Scotia has its inscribed stone, already interpreted as graphic runes, replete with equally suggestive traces of the Northmen of the tenth century. The inscribed rock at Yarmouth has long been an object of curious interest. So far back as 1857 I received from Dr. J. G. Farish a full-sized copy of the inscription, with the following account of it: “The inscription, of which the accompanying sketch is an exact copy,
Inscription, Yarmouth Rock, Nova Scotia.
was discovered forty-five years ago, at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The rock on which the characters are engraved is about two feet in diameter, of an irregular hemispherical shape, with one naturally smooth surface. It lies on the shore of a small inlet, at high-water mark, and close to the bank, on which it may formerly have rested. The stone has been split where a very thin vein of quartz once traversed it, but the corresponding half could never be found. The tracing has been done with a sharp-pointed instrument carried onward, by successive blows of a hammer or mallet, the effect of which is plainly visible. The point of the instrument barely penetrated the layer of quartz, which is almost as thin as the black marks of the sketch. The inscription has been shown to several learned gentlemen—one intimately acquainted with the characters of the Micmac and Millicet Indians who once inhabited this country; another, familiar with the Icelandic and other Scandinavian languages; but no person has yet been able to decipher it.” Again, in 1880, I received from Mr. J. Y. Bulmer, Secretary of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, a photograph of the Yarmouth rock, with an accompanying letter, in which he remarks: “I am directed by the council of the Nova Scotia Historical Society to forward to you a photographic view of a stone found near the ocean, in Yarmouth county, N.S., and having an inscription which, if not runic or Phœnician, is supposed by many to be the work of man. As ancient remains are most likely to be preserved by calling attention to all such works and inscriptions, we thought it best to forward it to you, where it could be examined by yourself and others likely to detect a fraud, or translate an inscription. The stone is now—or was one hundred years ago—near, or in fact on, the edge of the sea. It has since been removed to Yarmouth for preservation. It was found near Cape Sable, a cape that must have been visited by nearly every navigator, whether ancient or modern.”
The earlier description of Dr. Farish is valuable, as it preserves an account of the rock while it still occupied its original site. He speaks, moreover, definitely as to the period when it first attracted attention; and which, though more recent than the “one hundred years” of my later correspondent, or a nearly equivalent statement in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, that “it has been known for nearly an hundred years,” is sufficiently remote to remove all idea of fraud, at least by any person of the present generation. The description given by Dr. Farish of the apparent execution of the inscription by means of a sharp-pointed instrument—meaning thereby no doubt a metallic tool—and a hammer or mallet, clearly points to other than native Indian workmanship, whatever may have been the date of its execution. As will be seen from the accompanying copy, it is in arbitrary linear characters bearing no resemblance to the abbreviated symbols familiar to us in Indian epigraphy; and at the same time it may be described as unique in character. Having been known to people resident in its vicinity for many years before the attention of students of the early monuments of the continent was invited to it, it appears to be beyond suspicion of purposed fraud. I did not attempt any solution of the enigma thus repeatedly submitted to my consideration; but it was this graven stone that was referred to when, in the inaugural address to the section of History and Archæology of the Royal Society of Canada, in 1882, the remark was made: “I know of but one inscription in Canada which seems to suggest the possibility of a genuine native record.”
On nearly every recurrence of an inscription in any linear form of alphabetic character brought to light in the western hemisphere, the first idea has been to suggest a Phœnician origin; and this is, no doubt, implied in the statement of its runic decipherer, in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, that “the glyphs have been at various times copied and sent abroad to men of learning who have made more or less attempts at deciphering them, more than one savant seeing traces of Semitic origin.” But latterly with the reported discovery of any linear inscription on the eastern seaboard, the temptation has been to refer it to the Northmen of the eleventh century. To this accordingly the allusions of both of my Nova-Scotian correspondents pointed. But the characters of the Scandinavian futhork are sufficiently definite to satisfy any one familiar with Scottish and Manx runic inscriptions, or with Professor George Stephens’ ample illustrations of them as they are found in the native home of the Northmen, that it is vain to look to either for a key to the graven legend on the Yarmouth rock. The presence of the Northmen, not only in Iceland and Greenland, but as transient visitors on some portion of the North American mainland, now rests on satisfactory historical evidence. In Greenland they left indisputable literate records of their colonisation of the region to which they gave the inapt name it still retains. The runic inscriptions brought to Copenhagen in 1831 not only determine the sites of settlements effected by the companions and successors of Eric, but they serve to show the kind of evidence to be looked for, alike to the north and the south of the St. Lawrence, if any traces yet survive of their having attempted to colonise the old Markland and Vinland, whether the latter is recovered in Nova Scotia or New England. Their genuine memorials are not less definite than those left by the Romans in Gaul or Britain; and corresponding traces of them in the assumed Vinland, and elsewhere in the United States, have been perseveringly, but vainly, sought for. One unmistakably definite Scandinavian inscription, that of the “Huidœrk,” professedly found on the river Potomac, does not lay claim to serious criticism.