Dighton, in Massachusetts; and, third, the "skeleton in armor" found at Fall River, in the same state. No others have been put forward on any evidence that challenges a critical examination.

The old mill at Newport, situated on the farm of Benedict Arnold, an early governor of Rhode Island, was called in his will "my stone built wind mill," and had there been in his mind any mystery about its origin, he could hardly have failed to indicate it as a part of his description. Roger Williams, the pioneer settler of Rhode Island, educated at the University of Cambridge, England, a voluminous author, was himself an antiquary, and deeply interested in everything that pertained to our aboriginal history. Had any building of arched mason-work, with some pretensions to architecture, existed at the time when he first took up his abode in Rhode Island, and before any English settlements had been made there, he could not have failed to mention it: a phenomenon so singular, unexpected, and mysterious must have attracted his attention. His silence on the subject renders it morally certain that no such structure could have been there at that time.[7]

The inscriptions on the Dighton rock present rude cuttings, intermingled with outline figures of men and animals. The whole, or any part of them, baffles and defies all skill in interpretation. Different scholars have thought they discerned in the shapeless traceries Ph[oe]nician, Hebrew, Scythian, and Runic characters or letters. Doubtless some similitude to them may here and there be seen. They are probably accidental resemblances. But no rational interpretation has ever been given, and it seems now to be generally conceded by those best qualified to judge, that they are the work of our native Indians, of very trivial import, if, indeed, they had any meaning whatever.

The "skeleton in armor," found at Fall River, has no better claim than the rest to a Scandinavian origin. What appeared to be human bones were found in a sand-bank, encased in metallic bands of brass. Its antecedents are wholly unknown. It may possibly have been the relics of some early navigator, cast upon our shore, who was either killed by the natives or died a natural death, and was buried in the armor in which he was clad. Or, what is far more probable, it may have been the remains of one of our early Indians, overlaid even in his grave, according to their custom, with the ornaments of brass, which he had moulded and shaped with his own hands while living.[8]

Could the veil be lifted, some such stories as these would doubtless spring up from the lifeless bones. But oblivion has for many generations brooded over these voiceless remains. Their story belongs to the domain of fancy and imagination. Poetry has woven it into an enchanting ballad. Its rhythm and its polished numbers may always please the ear and gratify the taste. But history, the stern and uncompromising arbiter of past events, will, we may be sure, never own the creations of the poet or the dreams of the enthusiast to be her legitimate offspring.

Half a century has now elapsed since the sagas have been accessible to the English reader in his own language. No labor has been spared by the most careful, painstaking, and conscientious historians in seeking for remains which can be reasonably identified as the work of the Northmen. None whatever have been found, and we may safely predict that none will be discovered, that can bear any better test of their genuineness than those to which we have just alluded.[9]

It is the office and duty of the historian to seek out facts, to distinguish the true from the false, to sift the wheat from the chaff, to preserve the one and to relegate the other to the oblivion to which it belongs.

Tested by the canons that the most judicious scholars have adopted in the investigation of all early history, we cannot doubt that the Northmen made four or five voyages to the coast of America in the last part of the tenth and the first part of the eleventh centuries; that they returned to Greenland with cargoes of grapes and timber, the latter a very valuable commodity in the markets both of Greenland and Iceland; that their abode on our shores was temporary; that they were mostly occupied in explorations, and made no preparations for establishing any permanent colony; except their temporary dwellings they erected no structures whatever, either of wood or of stone. We have intimations that other voyages were made to this continent, but no detailed account of them has survived to the present time.

These few facts constitute the substance of what we know of these Scandinavian discoveries. Of the details we know little: they are involved in indefiniteness, uncertainty, and doubt. The place of their first landing, the location of their dwellings, the parts of the country which they explored, are so indefinitely described that they are utterly beyond the power of identification.

But I should do injustice to the subject to which I have ventured to call your attention, if I did not add that writers are not wanting who claim to know vastly more of the details than I can see my way clear to admit. They belong to that select class of historians who are distinguished for an exuberance of imagination and a redundancy of faith. It is a very easy and simple thing for them to point out the land-fall of Leif, the river which he entered, the island at its mouth, the bay where they cast anchor, the shore where they built their temporary houses, the spot where Thorvald was buried, and where they set up crosses at his head and at his feet. They tell us what headlands were explored on the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and what inlets and bays were entered along the shores of Maine. The narratives which they weave from a fertile brain are ingenious and entertaining: they give to the sagas more freshness and greater personality, but when we look for the facts on which their allegations rest, for anything that may be called evidence, we find only the creations of an undisciplined imagination and an agile fancy.

It is, indeed, true that it would be highly gratifying to believe that the Northmen made more permanent settlements on our shores, that they reared spacious buildings and strong fortresses of stone and mason-work, that they gathered about them more of the accessories of a national, or even of a colonial existence; but history does not offer us any choice: we must take what she gives us, and under the limitations which she imposes. The truth, unadorned and without exaggeration, has a beauty and a nobility of its own. It needs no additions to commend it to the historical student. If he be a true and conscientious investigator, he will take it just as he finds it: he will add nothing to it: he will take nothing from it.

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