When we read all the discussion in the press about the Kensington Stone, and all the erroneous remarks about the Vineland voyages, we feel it our duty to clarify all this as much as possible. We especially want to correct some of the historians (?) that rave about this question in our English press. The facts that we pass on to our readers will equip them with knowledge, so that they can speak with confidence on this question.......

The Scandinavians have an honorable place in the annals of America. America is indebted to them for many special services. The civilized history of America begins with the Norsemen. Look at your map and you will find that Greenland and also part of Iceland belong to the Western Hemisphere. Iceland became the hinge upon which the door swings which opened America to Europe. It was the settlement of Iceland by the Norsemen in the year 874, and the 2frequent voyages between this island and Norway that led to the discovery and settlement, first of Greenland and then of America; and it is due to the culture and fine historical taste of the old Icelanders that carefully prepared records of the Norse voyages were kept. In this connection, it is proper to emphasize the fact that the old republican vikings fully understood the importance of studying the art of shipbuilding and of navigation. They knew how to measure time by the stars and how to calculate the course of the sun and the moon. They were, themselves, pioneers in venturing out upon the high seas, and taught the rest of the world to navigate the ocean. Every scrap of written history sustains me when I say, with all the emphasis I can put into so many words, that the other peoples of the world were limited in their nautical knowledge to coast navigation. The Norse vikings who crossed the stormy North Sea and found their way to Great Britain, to the Orkney Islands, The Faeroes, and to Iceland, and all those heroes who found their way to Greenland and Vineland taught the world pelagic navigation. In every history of the world 3and in every encyclopedia it should be stated that navigation of the high seas was discovered by the Norsemen.

A most fitting introduction to the list of achievements responsible for the honorable place held by the Scandinavians in the annals of America is the fact --this brilliant event in world history, this lustrous page in the annals of the Scandinavians--that the Norsemen anticipated Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci by five centuries, that the New World was discovered by Leif Ericson in the year 1000; for the finding of America is the most prominent fact in the history of maritime discovery, and has been fraught with most important consequences to the world at large from that time to the present. In 860, the Norsemen discovered Iceland and soon afterwards they established on this island a republic which flourished for four hundred years. Greenland was seen for the first time in 876 by Gunnbjorn Ulfson, of Norway. About a century later, in 984, the Norwegian-Icelander, Eric the Red, resolved to go 4in search of the land to the west which Gunnbjorn, as well as others later, had seen. He sailed from Iceland for the land he was looking for, and he remained there exploring the country for two years. Then he returned to Iceland, giving the newly discovered land the name of Greenland, in order, as he said, to attract settlers who would be favorably impressed by so pleasing a name. And as Greenland, geographically, belongs wholly to America, it will be seen that Eric the Red was the first white man to boom American real estate, and he did it successfully. Many Norsemen, both Icelanders and Norwegians, emigrated to Greenland in 986, and a flourishing colony was established there with Gardar for its capital and Eric the Red for its first chief magistrate. In 1261, the colony became subject to the crown of Norway. We have a list of seventeen bishops who served Greenland. This was the first settlement of Europeans in the New World. Eric the Red and his followers were not Christians when they settled in Greenland, but were worshippers of Odin and Thor, although they relied chiefly on their own might and strength.

Christianity was introduced among them by Leif Ericson in the year 1000, at the behest of the Norwegian King, Olaf Trygvasson.

The first white man whose eyes beheld any part of the American continent west of Greenland was the Norseman, Bjarne Herjulfson, in 986. The first white man who, to our certain knowledge, planted his feet on the soil of the American Continent was Leif Ericson, the son of Eric the Red, in the year 1000. The first white man and the first Christian who was buried beneath American sod was Leif's brother, Thorvald, in 1002. The first white man who founded a settlement within the limits of the present United States was Thorfinn Karlsenne, in 1007. The first white woman who came to Vineland was Thorfinn's talented and enterprising wife, Gudrid. In 1008, she gave birth to a son in Vineland. The boy was named Snorre and he was the first person of European descent to see the light of day in the New World. And I may add 6here that the greatest sculptor of his day, the distinguished Albert Thorwaldson, was a direct descendant of the American lad,Snorre.

From the accounts of these voyages and settlements, we get our first knowledge and descriptions of the aborigines of America. In 1112, Helge and Finnboge, with the woman Freydis, made a voyage to Vineland. In 1112, Erik Upse settled as bishop in Greenland, and in 1121 this same bishop went on a missionary visit from Greenland to Vineland. This is the first visit of a Christian minister to the American continent. The last of these voyages before the rediscovery of America by Columbus was in 1347, when a Greenlander, with a crew of eighteen men, came from Nova Scotia (Markland) to Straumfjord in Iceland. Thus it appears that the Vineland voyages extended over a period of about 350 years and within 145 years of the rediscovery by Columbus in 1492.

While Leif Ericson was the first white man who planted his feet on the eastern 7shores of the American continent, it was left to a plucky Dane to become the discoverer of that narrow body of water which separates America from Asia. Vitus Bering was a Dane, born in Jutland, Denmark in 1680. He entered the service of Russia, and in 1725 he was made chief commander of the greatest geographical expedition ever undertaken up to that time. He explored the sea of Kamchatka, and during this voyage he discovered the Bering Strait in 1728, ascertaining that Asia was not joined to America. And so, as the Norwegian Icelander, Leif Ericson, is the first white man who set foot on the extreme eastern part of this continent, so the Dane, Vitus Bering becomes the discoverer of this extreme western boundary line. Leif Ericson and Vitus Bering stand at the rising and setting sun and grasp what is now the territory of the United States in their strong Scandinavian arms. And may we not fittingly here add a Swede to complete the trio? Did not Sweden give us John Ericsson, who, with his little cheesebox, the "Monitor", gave invaluable help to this our beloved land, in the hour of its greatest danger?

Who will deny that the Scandinavians have rendered important services to this country, and is it not eminently fitting that the whole American people should set apart one day each year to commemorate these services and particularly the discovery of this continent by Leif Ericson in the year 1000?

Let the scoffers that write in the English press read a little history, and so get the facts, instead of misleading the reading public.